Architecture & Interior Design

Ziegert Roswag Seiler Architekten Ingenieure: Earthen School in Pakistan.An excellent example of vernacular architecture.

2011-12-19T02:00:00.009+02:00

'Tipu sultan merkez' earthen school in jar maulwi, pakistan by berlin-based architectural and engineering practice ziegert roswag seiler architekten ingenieure has received this year's holcim award for sustainable construction within the asia-pacific region. The first level of of the two-story building is constructed
with cob walls comprised of locally sourced clay, sand, straw, water and earth. Resting upon brick foundations,the interior spaces are protected from moisture penetrating from the ground or rainwater. The upper flooris a bamboo framework filled with an earthen mixture.

The combined result of the structure absorbs humidity and the mass of the thick 60 centimeter bearing walls reduces the temperature of interior spaces by 8 degrees celsius during the 40 degree summer heat. Local residents were able to build their new community facility by implementing appropriate construction technologies and
skills which were already present within the village.

For more informations please visit:HERE

christ.christ associated architects: house S

2011-12-19T01:33:00.002+02:00

German practice christ.christ associated architects have completed 'house S', an upgrade to a bungalow constructed
in the 1960s by wilfried hilger in weisbaden, germany. to add space to the single family residence, three separate boxes
connected with a channel glass corridor were placed upon the flat cantilevered roof. the arrangement generates open-air terraces
with diverse atmospheres including a stone-paved courtyard with a pine tree, a meadow with an apple tree and a wooden
planked patio with a magnolia.

For further information please visit:HERE

Fühlometer by Richard Wilhelmer, Julius von Bismarck, and Benjamin Maus

2011-12-19T00:57:00.006+02:00

The Fühl-o-meter/Public Face is an interactive art installation that calibrates the mood of the city in which it has been erected with a monumental illuminated Smiley. The work of artists Richard Wilhelmer, Julius von Bismarck, and Benjamin Maus, the urban emoticon accurately communicates its host city’s gefühlszustand according to “mood data” obtained using integrated software which analyzes photos of the faces of passing pedestrians and processes emotions out of them. Mechanical armatures modulate the face’s expression in real-time, making it appear by turns happy, sad, or apathetic with corresponding gestures (smiley, frown, and blank). The Public Face was installed on top of a lighthouse on Lindau Island last year, but we hope that it’s rebooted and sent to other cities around the world. Not that it would prove especially insightful, given that most cities are downright miserable. Here’s to the perpetually blank stare of Williamsburg!

For further information you can visit:HERE or HERE

Nakagin Capsule Tower - Kisho Kurokawa

2011-06-16T10:17:00.010+03:00

Ginza, Tokyo , Japan
Architect:Kisho Kurokawa
Design / Construction:1970-1972

Building Area: 429.51m²
Total Floor Area: 3,091.23m²
Steel and Reinforced Concrete
1 Basement Floor + 11 and 13 Floors

The Nakagin Capsule Tower is the world's first capsule architecture built for actual use. Capsule architecture design, establishment of the capsule as room and insertion of the capsule into a mega-structure, expresses its contemporaneousness with other works of liberated architecture from the later 1960's, in particular England's Archigram Group, France's Paul Memon, and Yona Friedman

The Nakagin Capsule Tower takes on the challenge of the issue of whether mass production can express a diverse new quality. The Tower also strives to establish a space for the individual as a criticism to the Japan that modernized without undergoing any establishment of an "self".

Kurokawa developed the technology to install the capsule units into a concrete core with only 4 high-tension bolts, as well as making the units detachable and replaceable. The capsule is designed to accommodate the individual as either an apartment or studio space, and by connecting units can also accommodate a family. Complete with appliances and furniture, from audio system to telephone, the capsule interior is pre-assembled in a factory off-site. The interior is then hoisted by crane and fastened to the concrete core shaft.

The Nakagin Capsule Tower realizes the ideas of metabolism, exchangeability, recycleablity as the prototype of sustainable architecture.

The Nakagin Capsule Tower has been short-listed for the World Heritage by the Inter-national Committee of Docomomo International since 1996.
source:Kisho Kurokawa

Nanomaterials in Architecture,Interior Architecture and Design - Commercial building Pula, Croatia

2011-04-21T19:00:00.001+03:00

Nanomaterials in Architecture,Interior Architecture and Design.
Commercial building
Pula, Croatia
...
ARCHITECTURE :Rusan arhitectura, Andrija Rusan, Pula, Croatia
INTERIOR DESIGN : Skira
CLIENT :Lumenart d.o.o.
PRODUCT :Lotusan, self-cleaning paint (Lotus-Effect)
MANUFACTURER :Sto
COMPLETION :2006
AREA : 745 m^ gross floor area

...
The building for a lighting design company is clearly
visible in its surroundings. Its extravagant sculptural
form, a monolithic cubic arrangement coated all in
white looks simple but not ordinary. The windows appear
to be carved out of the volume of the building
while the thick walls and the drawbridge-like entrance
canopy remind one of a fortress.
Brilliant white dominates indoors and outdoors alike
and is the sole colour of all surfaces. In the interior, it
serves as background for the showroom, projections
and light design, forming a light ambience. Outdoors,
when seen from afar, its pure white colour makes the
building look like a crystal or a light and is also reminiscent
of the white architecture of Mediterranean hill
towns. At night, the clean white cube with its subtle
play of natural light is transformed into a colourfully
illuminated eye-catcher.
The intensity of the pure white surfaces is protected
against dirt with the help of a Lotus-Effect fagade coating.
Dirt simply washes off the rough surface together
with the rain. The self-cleaning function should persist
for at least five years without needing to be renewed.

Nanomaterials in Architecture,Interior Architecture and Design - Ara Pacis Museum - Rome, Italy

2011-04-20T15:57:00.001+03:00

ARCHITECTURE: Richard Meier & Partners, New York, NY, USA
CLIENT: Comune di Roma, Rome, Italy
PRODUCT: Lotusan, self-cleaning paint (Lotus-Effect)
MANUFACTURER: Sto
OPENED: 2006
...
After ten years of construction and political debate, the
Ara Pacis Museum is now home to an archaeological
highlight in Rome. The Ara Pacis Augustae, a sacrificial
altar that was inaugurated by the Emporer Augustus
himself, was given a new container that remedies the
environmental as well aesthetic deficits of the previous
pavilion from 1938 in which the monument was formerly
kept. A tripartite building complex has been created
on the banks of the River Tiber, whose urban form
now fits in with the historic centre of Rome, and which
connects antiquity with the modern. The complex consists
of an entrance gallery with an urban square in
front, the main building with the exhibits, conference
rooms and restaurant as well as further areas with
space for temporary exhibitions, library and offices.
The monument itself, the "Pax Augusta", is now contained
within a transparent glazed part of the building
and protected against damage from the environment.
The remainder of the building is characterised by large
blocks of travertine, typical for Rome, and surfaces clad
in white, as is typical for Meier's architecture. Here a
self-cleaning coating has been invisibly integrated into
the white surfaces to ensure the durability of their
colour. In the heavily polluted city, it would not otherwise
have stood much chance of remaining white for
long.

Nanomaterials in Architecture, Interior Architecture and Design - MSV Arena soccer stadium Duisburg, Germany

2011-04-20T06:00:00.000+03:00

MSV Arena soccer stadium Duisburg, Germany
Duisburg, Germany

ARCHITECTURE - ar.te.plan, Burkhard Grimm, Michael Stehle,
Dortmund, Germany
CLIENTMSV - Duisburg
PRODUCT - Pilkington Activ, photocatalytic self-cleaning glass
MANUFACTURER - Pilkington Deutschland AG/Pilkington Group
COMPLETION - 2004
AREA - 18,000m2 traffic area

...
Over a period of just over a year, a new soccer stadium
was built in the centre of the Ruhr conurbation to house
30,000 fans of the MSV, the Duisburg soccer club. More
than 15,000m^ of concrete were used, 3500 tonnes of
steel reinforcement, around 30 steel pylons and last but
not least almost 7,500 m^ of turf (heated from beneath)
were laid and an almost 40 m^ large screen was
erected.
1,500 m2 of glass were needed for the impressive 120 m
wide glass and aluminium fagade. By using a photocatalytic
self-cleaning glass, the cleaning interval could
be lengthened considerably. In addition to its selfcleaning
function, the glass wall also offers solar protection
and noise insulating properties.

Nanomaterials in Architecture, Interior Architecture and Design - Children's playground in the Mannou National Government Park Kagawa, Japan

2011-04-18T18:52:00.000+03:00

Children's playground in the Mannou National Government Park
Kagawa, Japan
...
ARCHITECTURE - Urban Design Consultant Inc., Japan
CLIENT - Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport
PRODUCT - Ever Fine Coat, photocatalytic self-cleaning membrane
MANUFACTURER - Taiyo Kogyo Corporation
COMPLETION - 2004
AREA - 700m2
...
Located in the centre of a park, a new children's playground
was built, part of which is covered to protect
against the sun. The circular tensile membrane follows
the circular shape beneath and forms a roofed-over
indoor-like space. The membrane not only shades the
play area beneath, it also offers protection against UV
light, which is harmful for young children's particularly
sensitive skin. By using a photocatalytic self-cleaning
coating, it was possible to choose a light colour for the
membrane. Even in poor weather conditions, the UV
light required to initiate the photocatalytic reaction is
sufficient so that rain can wash off the dirt deposits
lying loose on the membrane.

NAKED HOUSE - Saitama, Japan, 2000 - by Shigeru Ban

2011-03-05T17:08:00.000+02:00

NAKED HOUSE by Shigeru Ban - New Directions in Sustainable Architecture

Casa Malaparte - in Capri (1937)

2011-03-05T15:50:00.000+02:00

The house was conceived around 1937
by Italian Rationalist architect
Adalberto Libera
for Curzio Malaparte.

Casa Malaparte in Capri - Presentation by V.Valogianni

ΠΛΑΤΕΙΑ ΚΟΛΩΝΑΚΙΟΥ - ΜΕΛΕΤΗ

2011-03-02T09:00:00.001+02:00

ΜΕΛΕΤΗ ΚΑΙ ΠΡΟΤΑΣΗ ΕΠΕΜΒΑΣΗΣ ΥΠΑΙΘΡΙΟΥ ΑΣΤΙΚΟΥ ΧΩΡΟΥ ΜΕ ΒΙΟΚΛΙΜΑΤΙΚΑ ΚΡΙΤΗΡΙΑ .
*Μια εργασία για το Ε.Μ.Π.

ΠΛΑΤΕΙΑ ΚΟΛΩΝΑΚΙΟΥ - MEΛΕΤΗ

Casa Vicens - (1883-1888) Antoni Gaudí i Cornet

2011-03-02T07:39:00.000+02:00

Antoni Gaudi i Cornet - Casa Vicens

Christian De Groote - Constanza Vergana House 1980 - Algarrobo, Chile

2010-10-26T19:20:00.000+03:00

Christian De Groote Córdova, arquitecto.
Nació en Valdivia, Chile en 1931.

He joined the School of Architecture at the Catholic University of Chile in 1952, majoring in architecture in 1957. In 1958 he received a Fulbright scholarship which allowed him to graduate studies in the ITT, Illinois Institute of Technology, USA where he remained until 1959.

On his return to Chile he worked in the office of Emilio Duhart, which showed a strong influence on the architecture of Louis Kahn American. Collaborated in the construction project ECLAC in Santiago. In 1967 he was installed as an independent architect.
Cristián De Groote was awarded the National Architecture Award 1993 awarded by the College of Architects of Chile.

His early work was mainly related to industrial architecture being the designer of the building of the newspaper El Mercurio in 1967 and Huachipato Cronox Steelworks in 1969. De Groote later took on the challenge of creating domestic spaces leading to the implementation of major residential houses among which his own account, located on the corner of Lota street with Sweden in the commune of Providencia.

Characteristics in their work has been its ability to combine creative freedom with adherence to formal principles of contemporary architecture. Its buildings make use slopes of hillsides to create structural harmony with the gardens of the surroundings and inside enclosed areas with thick concrete walls, rooms lit with openings in heaven, while stressing the importance of key sectors of the home like stairs.
Text Sourse:Artistas Plasticos Chilenos

HITOSHI ABE - AOBA-TEI RESTAURANT (2004-05)

2010-02-27T12:06:00.000+02:00

Note:click on pictures to enlarge

HITOSHI ABE
was born in 1962 in Sendai, Miyagi.
He worked from 1988 to 1988 in the office of Coop Himmelbau
and obtained his Master of Architecture degree from
the Southern California Institute of Architecture(SCI-Arc) in 1989.
He created his own firm, Atelier Hitoshi Abe, in 1992.
From 1994 , he directed the Hitoshi Abe Architectural Design Laboratory
at the Tohoku Institute of Technology.
He has been a Professor at Tohoku University since 2002.His work includes:
the Miyagi Water Tower,Rifu,Miyagi(1994)
the Gravel-2 House, Sendai, (1998)
the Neige Lune Fleur Restaurant, Sendai(1999)
the Miyagi Stadium, Rifu, Miyagi (2000)
the Michinoku Folklore Museum,Kurikoma, Miyagi (2000)
and the A-House,Sendai(2000).
More recently, he has been working on the JB House,
the S-Orthopedics Factory and Office Building, all located in Sendai.
He won,the 2003 Architectural Institute of Japan Award for the Reihoku Community Hall,Reihoku,Kumamoto (2001-02)

Moore House, Connecticut, by Alfredo de Vido

2010-01-31T18:06:00.000+02:00

Moore House - Sharon, Connecticut

The house faces south tow ard a pond and fits with in a minimally-disturbed landscape . There is no northern exposure in th is house . Passive solar design controls the flow of energy th ough thebuilding. Mature red oak trees on the property were selectively cut to provide posts and beams . Old fieldstone walls on the property were used for facing the concre te walls . Natural light was broughtinto the rear of the house via a long row of skylights , soon an overcast day, one does not feel“underground” in any room .

The main goal of the owners and architect was to merge this house into its natural environment. The site was selected so that the land would be minimally disturbed. The house was to face south toward a pond developed by the owners and was to fit within the landscape in a manner that provided no exposure to the north. Passive solar design controls the flow of energy through the building by natural means, utilizing energy conservation principles. Some of the materials used were found on the site itself. Mature red oak trees on the property were selectively cut to provide posts and beams for the house. This was done long enough before ground breaking to ensure that the lumber was aged. Old fieldstone walls on the property provided material for facing the concrete walls. The main building materials are concrete sandblasted in some areas, and faced with stone in others) and oak posts and beams. An important design consideration was the proportion of the walls with the glass areas. Natural light is brought into the rear of the house via a long row of skylights and even on an overcast day, one does not feel "underground" in any room. The rich colorings of the wood, stone, and other materials further distance any feeling of subterranean space

Source for the txt : http://www.devido-architects.com/

Nautilus House in Mexico City by architect Javier Senosiain

2010-01-30T15:31:00.000+02:00

Whimsical House – Nautilus House in Mexico City

This wonderful, whimsical house design in Mexico City is bringing the life aquatic into architecture. The modern Nautilus House designed by architect Javier Senosiain of Arquitectura Organica is wonderful to look at, walk through and enjoy for what it is – a blend of modern architecture and contemporary art. The Nautilus House falls under the architect’s “organic works” category, inspired by the sea and taking on the twisting and turning form of the Nautilus shell. The sculptural whimsical house features a striking entry cut into a wall of colorful stained glass. From the outside, it’s enough to draw you in; while inside it casts multi-colored spots of light onto walls. But surprisingly, that’s still not the most unusual feature of the house. This interior “grass carpet” is just amazing, leading residents and guests through a network of stone paths to the various areas of the home. The bathroom is simply amazing. In it, you actually feel like you’re under water with the sandy walls, gorgeous blue tiles and the window overhead. This cool home comes together using “ferrocement constructio,” which involves a frame of steel-reinforced chicken wire covered in a two-inch layer of composite of concrete. Not only is the result beautiful, it’s also earthquake-proof and maintenance-free

( Source for the txt:http://www.trendir.com/ )

Fallingwater: Bear Run, Pennsylvania, 1935, Frank Lloyd Wright

2009-10-31T22:35:00.000+02:00

Kaufmann Residence
(Fallingwater) (1935) - Bear Run, PA; Frank Lloyd Wright

Kaufmann Residence (Fallingwater) (1935) - Frank Lloyd Wright

REN BUILDING

2009-10-19T11:21:00.000+03:00

The Ren building is a proposal for a hotel, sports and conference center for the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai...

The building is conceived as 2 buildings merging into 1.

The first building emerging from the water, is devoted to the activities of the body, and houses thet sports and water culture center.

The second building emerging from land, is devoted to the spirit and and anlightenment. The two buildings meet in a 1000 room hotel.

THE GREEN HOUSE - New Directions in Sustainable Architecture

2009-10-19T10:53:00.000+03:00

The Green House
New Directions in Sustainable Architecture

R128 by Werner Sobek

Naked House by Shigeru Ban

Great Bamboo Wall by Kengo Kuma

Charlotte Residence by William mcDonough + parteners

Walla Womba Guest House, by 1+2 Architecture

Nagasaki Art Museum

2009-10-18T19:23:00.000+03:00

The Nagasaki Prefectural Art Museum in Nagasaki,
Japan, is one of Kengo Kuma's most successful designs in an urban setting.
In this project, a small canal with flanking pedestrian promenades runs between two interconnected sections of the complex, bringing a part of the nearby sea, the port area, and the public realm of the city into the domain of the museum.
The building opens up to this intimate, in-between urban space, both visually through large glass surfaces on the first floor and physically by means of additional entrances to the museum. These secondary entrances can be approached through shaded arcades, zones defined by the extension of the vertical stone louvers that populate the facades along the canal.
Of City and Sea
This major museum houses a large collection of artwork and artifacts, much of it dating back to an era, during the Edo period (1603-1868), that saw Nagasaki as one of Japan's only points of contact with the outside world.
The project is located on a landfill site on the Port of Nagasaki, and it is bounded on the remaining three edges by busy roads. A canal bisects the museum, and pedestrian promenades hug both banks, putting the water's tidal fluctuations on full display to the publicThe walkway also provides a viewing area for looking into the museum and therefore acts as an outdoor municipal exhibition space, drawing the city into the museum. The canal literally and figuratively immerses the museum within the site.
The experience of visiting the museum is affected by the site's strong intersection of urban characteristics, as well as by the natural landscape. At ground level, a broad plaza with a "river amphitheater" seeps toward one side of the museum and expands into the lofty entrance lobby.
Much of the public program is located at this level, including a media center and a gallery facing the canal. The ground level in the other volume includes a narrowly proportioned, glass-enclosed "river gallery," as well as archives, stacks, and an information lab.

source:http://www.architectureweek.com/

INTERIOR COLOR BY DESIGN - BASIC COLOR THEORY II

2009-10-05T15:34:00.000+03:00

COLOR TEMPERATURE

Colors are ofren referred to as either warm or cool.
The colors on the color wheel are easy to separate into warm and cool
colors .Red, orange, and yellow are considered warm while green,
blue, and purple are described as cool.
As colors become less pure, the terms warm and cool become more useful as relative
companions rather than absolute descriptions.

HOW COLORS MIX

ADDITIVE COLOR

Natural light contains all the colors of the spectrum.
By breaking light down into its component parts, or spectral colors,
it is possible to combine and mix the individual colors to form
new ones.
Additive color is the process of mixing colored light.
The most common aplication of this can be found in theater lighting.
For example, a red light overlapping a green light produces a yellow light.
Colored pigments, however, behave very differently than colored light
when combined or mixed.
The primary colors of light are red, green,and blue;
the primary colors of pigments are red, yellow and blue.
When all three primary colors of light are combined, they from white light, and,
when thwo colors of light are added together they always produce a color of lighter value.
The principles of additive color are most critical in theater or other dramatic
lighting.
For the purposes of inerior color design , it is important to understand the effect
of artificial lighting on the perception of color.
For example, incandescent light brings out the warm colors of an inerior while fluorescent light emphasizes the color.

INTERIOR COLOR BY DESIGN - BASIC COLOR THEORY I

2009-10-05T13:47:00.000+03:00

ATTRIBUTES OF COLOR

HUE OR COLOR
The first attribute of color is hue, wich is the name for a color,
such as yellow, green, blue, red.
The color wheel is to represent the basic colors (hues) of the visible spectrum.
All the hues indicated on the color wheel are of full intesity.
For the sake of simplicity, the most common color wheel is made up of 12 color
gradiations, even though there are actually an infinite number of color
gradiations possible between each color on the weel.

VALUE OR LIGHTNESS

The second attribute of color is value, or the relative
lightness or darkness of a color.
Lightness values are archieved by adding white to a color,
and darker values result from adding black.

CHROMA OR SATURATION

The third attirbute of color is chroma or saturation, the relative
purity or intensity of a color determined by how much or how little gray
is added to the color.The value of the color on a chroma scale do not change;
only the intencity of the color varies

So,the three attributes of color- hue, value, and chroma - are what defines every color.Every color as having three dimencions;therefore, to fully describe any color it is necessary to describe each of these dimensions or attributes.

Others colors terms useful to a basic understanding of color theory

are tint,shade,and tone.

All of these are colors of full intensity or chroma mixed with white,

black, or some value of gray.

Mixing with white creates a tint (pastels),mixing with black

produces a shade, and combining some value of gray with

another color creates a tone.

The Farnsworth House - The structure

2009-10-04T20:55:00.000+03:00

The structure
The basic structure of Farnsworth House consists of eight
wide-flange steel stanchions A, to which are welded two sets of
fascia channels to form a perimeter frame B at roof level, and a
similar perimeter frame C at floor level - see figure 40.
Sets of steel cross-girders D and E are welded to the longitudinal
channels, and pre-cast concrete planks I and N placed
upon these to form the roof and floor slabs respectively. The
loading imposed upon C by the floor construction is obviously
greater than that imposed on B by the roof, but for the sake of
visual consistency Mies has made them of equal depth - an
example of the primacy of 'form' over 'function' to which he
was in principle opposed,59 but which stubbornly emerges in
almost all his mature work.™

The steel stanchions stop short of the channel cappings,
making it clear that the roof plane does not rest on the columns
but merely touches them in passing, thus helping to create the
impression alluded to at the start of this essay - that the
horizontal elements appear to be held to their vertical supports
by magnetism.
Above the roof slab is a low service module containing water
tank, boiler, extract fans from the two bathrooms and a flue
from the fireplace. Beneath the floor slab is a cylindrical drum
housing all drainage pipes and incoming water and electrical
services.
Steelwork
As the Farnsworth House is probably the most complete and
refined statement of glass-and-steel architecture Mies ever
produced - the ultimate crystallization of an idea, as Peter
Blake has put it- it is worth examining this aspect in detail.
Mies's admiration for the structural clarity of the steel frame
long predates his arrival in Chicago, and was no doubt motivated
by reasons both aesthetic and practical.61 Aesthetically the steel
frame lent itself to clear structural display, and was 'honest' and
free of rhetoric or historical associations - highly-prized
characteristics to the future-worshipping avant-garde of the
1920s. From a practical standpoint the steel frame allowed
open-plan interiors in which walls could be freely disposed,62
and even more importantly it seemed to hold the answer to

Mies's dream of traditional construction methods being
replaced by industrial systems in which all the building parts
could be factory-made and then rapidly assembled on-site.63
His move to Chicago in 1938 brought him to a city with
unparalleled expertise in steel construction. Until then he had
been able to use the steel frame only in a semi-concealed way;64
but after 1937-8 the nakedly exposed rolled steel beam,
uncamouflaged by covering layers of 'architecture' (except
where required by fire-safety codes), would begin to form the
basis of his most characteristic designs.
But whereas American builders used the steel frame with
no-nonsense practicality,65 the European Mies had different
priorities. Ignoring his own arguments of fifteen years earlier
that 'form is not an end in itself',66 and that the use of materials
should be determined by constructive requirements, he set
about refining and intellectualizing the steel frame in what may
best be described as a quest for ideal Platonic form.67
Thus, while the American avant-garde constructed their
steel houses on the practical and economical balloon-frame
principle, with slender steel members spaced fairly closely
together (see for instance Richard Neutra's Lovell 'Health'
House of 1927-9 and Charles Eames' Case Study House of
1949), Mies used heavy steel sections, spaced widely apart
and with no visible cross-bracing to give an unprecedentedly
open appearance (see especially his Farnsworth House and
New National Gallery). For added character he chose for his
stanchions not the commonly-used steel profiles of the time
but a wide-flanged profile notable for its handsome proportions
and precision of form.
Mies also departed from standard Chicago practice in his
steel-jointing techniques. Flanged steel sections are popular
in the construction industry partly for the ease with which they
may be bolted or riveted together. The flanges are easily drilled,
holes can take the form of elongated slots to accommodate
slight inaccuracies, and all the basic operations are speedy
and straightforward.
Mies used conventional bolted connections in the less visible
parts of his structures, but in exposed positions he wished his
elegant steel members to be displayed cleanly, uncluttered by
bolts, rivets or plates; and here he defied normal practice by
using more expensive welded joints, preferably concealed and
invisible. If the weld could not be totally hidden he would have
the steel sections temporarily joined by means of Nelson stud
bolts and cleats, apply permanent welding, and then burn off
the holding bolts and plug the holes. The steel surfaces would
then be ground smooth to give the appearance of being formed
of a single continuous material without breaks or joints. Finally,
to ensure a smooth and elegant appearance he had the steel
sections grit-blasted to a smooth matt surface, and the entire
assembly primed and given three coats of paint.
The effect of this sequence of operations in the Farnsworth
House was, as Franz Schulze has commented, almost to deindustrialize
the steel frame, taming the mighty product of blast
furnace, rolling mill and electric arc into a silky-surfaced,
seemingly jointless white substance of Platonic perfection.

Other materials
Passing on from the steel-and-glass envelope, the other materials
used in the Farnsworth House are rigorously restricted to
travertine (floors), wood (primavera for the core walls, teak for
the wardrobe) and plaster (ceilings).
The range of colours is equally limited, the better to set off
the few artworks and carefully-chosen items of furniture inside,
and the framed views of nature outside - white columns and
ceiling, off-white floors and curtains, and pale brown wood.
Such sobriety was a long-standing Miesian characteristic. In
1958 he told the architect and critic Christian Norberg-Schulz:
'I hope to make my buildings neutral frames in which man and
artworks can carry on their own lives ... Nature, too, shall have
its own life. We must beware not to disrupt it with the colour of
our houses and interior fittings. Yet we should attempt to bring
nature, houses and human beings together into a higher unity.
If you view nature through the glass walls of the Farnsworth
House, it gains a more profound significance than if viewed
from outside ... it becomes a part of a larger whole.

Detailing
As one would expect of Mies, the use of materials in the
Farnsworth House is immaculate.69 The American journal
Architectural Forum commented that the Italian travertine slabs
that form the floors of house and terrace were fitted to the steel
frames 'with a precision equal to that of the finest incastro
stonework', and that the plaster ceiling had 'the smoothness of
a high-grade factory finish' 7°
Looking at the details more closely, one discerns a typically
Miesian grammar that places his classically-inspired detailing
at the opposite pole to that represented by arts and craftsinfluenced
designers such as Greene and Greene." Whereas
the Greene brothers exuberantly celebrate the act of joining
materials, with an abundance of highly visible fasteners
intimating what goes on behind the surface, Mies hides his
fixings deep within the structure so as to leave his surfaces
smooth and unbroken.
The joints between components also display a characteristically
Miesian grammar. Wherever two adjoining components
are structurally unified, as in the case of steel members welded
together, Mies expresses unification by making the meetingpoint
invisible - hence the process already described of
grinding, polishing, priming and painting aimed at making an
assembly of separate steel members look like a single,
seamless casting. This approach is first seen in the X-crossing
of his Barcelona Chair, whose appearance Adrian Gale has
compared with those curviform eighteenth-century chairs
whose legs and rails are fluidly shaped, and invisibly jointed, to
convey an impression of the whole frame having been carved
from a single block of wood.
But wherever two adjoining components are connected
without being structurally fused, as in the case of stone slabs,
timber panels or screwed (not welded) steel members, Mies
takes the converse approach and emphasizes their separate
identities by inserting between them a neat open groove. In the
Farnsworth House such an indentation separates the plaster of
the ceiling from the steel frames that hold the glass walls.
While the use of a groove between adjoining elements was
not invented by him (it occurs in the work of both Schinkel and
Behrens, the latter using it for instance to separate window or
doorframes from adjoining wall surfaces), Mies came gradually
to replace most of the traditional cover strips with 'reveals' or
'flash gaps' - the respective American and British terms for the
separating groove. The process may be traced as follows.
In his pre-1920 houses, from the Riehl House to the Urbig
House of 1914, Mies generally used conventional interior trim to
cover building joints. In his Lange House he was still using
cornices, architraves, skirtings and other cover mouldings, but
reduced now to simple flat strips.72 In the Barcelona Pavilion he
took the last step: there are no longer any skirtings or cornices,
no column bases or capitals, and no applied trim of any kind
except for glazing beads around the glass screens. Surfaces
are clean and sheer, the junctions between them unconcealed.
But cover strips over the joints in a building have a function
and cannot simply be abolished. Where separate components
or different materials meet, the fit is inevitably imperfect, leading
to an unsightly crack. The crack worsens as repeated differential
movement causes the gap to widen and become ragged - a
process called 'fretting' - and some form of camouflage must
be devised. The traditional cover strip disguises the joint by
concealment; the open groove does so by making the crack
less obtrusive, an observer's eye tending to 'read' the straightedged
groove rather than the irregular crack-line meandering
within it. After about 1940 this was Mies's preferred method for
detailing all building joints. It is also of course an instance of the
phenomenon of 'inversion' noted on p.13, the open groove
being the counterform of the cover strip.
Internal environment
As regards thermal comfort, the Farnsworth House performed
poorly before the implementation in the 1970s of corrective
measures. In hot weather the interior could become oven-like
owing to inadequate cross-ventilation and no sun-screening
except for the foliage of adjacent trees. To create some crossventilation
occupants could open the entrance doors on the
west and two small hopper windows on the east, and activate
an electric exhaust fan in the kitchen floor, but these measures
were often inadequate. In cold weather the underfloor hotwater
coils produced the pleasant heat output characteristic of
such systems (partly radiant, and with temperatures at head
level not much higher than at floor-level), but insufficient in midwinter.
Underfloor systems also have a long warming-up period
that is ill-suited to an intermittently occupied house. To increase
the supply of heat, and give quicker warming, hot air could be
blown into the living area from a small furnace in the utility room.
There was also a somewhat ineffective fireplace set into the
south face of the central core, facing the living area, which it is
said to have covered with a layer of ash.
The worst cold-weather failing was the amount of condensation
streaming down the chilled glass panes and collecting
on the floor - one of Dr Edith Farnsworth's complaints in the
1953 court case as described on p.15. This was an elementary
design fault whose consequences Mies must have foreseen
and could have avoided, but presumably chose to ignore so as
not to destroy the beautiful simplicity of his glass-and-steel
facades.73
As regards electric lighting, the living and sleeping areas are
illuminatedbyuplightingreflectedofftheceiling,augmented by
freestanding chrome lamps. The quality of the lighting thus
produced is entirely to the present owner's satisfaction.
Rainwater drainage
Efficient rainwater disposal requires sloping surfaces, a characteristic
that is somewhat at odds with the perfect horizontals of
Mies's design, but the problem is neatly solved in the Farnsworth
House. Behind its level fascia the roof surface slopes down to a
single drainage pipe directly above the utility room stack. The
steel fascia and its capping stand sufficiently high above the
roof surface to conceal the sloping roof from all surrounding
sight-lines, and to prevent water spilling over the edge and
staining the white paint.
The travertine-paved terrace has a perfectly level upper
surface and yet remains dry. This has been achieved by laying
the slabs on gravel beds contained in sheet-metal troughs with
water outlets at their lowest points (see figure 40). Rainwater
therefore drains down between the slabs, through the gravelbeds and out via the base outlets

Assessment
The Farnsworth House expresses to near perfection Mies van
der Rohe's belief in an architecture of austere beauty, free of
historical allusion or rhetoric, relying on clean forms and noble
materials to epitomize an impersonal 'will of the age' that
stands aloof from such ephemeralities as fashion or the
personal likes and dislikes of individual clients.74 In its very
perfection, by these exalted criteria, lie the building's great
strengths but also its weaknesses.
The first strength is its success as a place, where the house
goes far towards realizing that vision of the dwelling as a
spiritual space expressed three decades earlier by Ebeling,75
and again in 1951 (the very year of its completion) in a noteworthy
essay by the German philosopher Heidegger.76
The manner in which man, architecture and nature have been
brought together on this riverside meadow creates a magical
sense of being within nature, not separated from it as in
traditional buildings. From their glass-enclosed belvedere
residents may tranquilly observe the surrounding meadow and
trees change character as one season gives way to the next,
the woodland colours heightened by the white framing, and the
hourly fluctuations of light subtly reflecting off the white ceiling.
As Peter Carter (who has stayed in the Farnsworth House in
all seasons) has observed:
'In summer the great room floats above a green meadow, its
visual boundaries extending to the leafy screen of deciduous
trees encircling the house, and the high sun bouncing off the
travertine surface of the covered terrace to wash the ceiling
with a glowing luminosity. On sunny days the white steel
profiles receive bright articulation and precise modelling from
the sun's rays; on dull days the diffuse light will still pick out the
profiles of these architectural elements even when viewed from
far away in the meadow. Summer is also the season of truly
operatic storms: when witnessed from the glass-walled interior
high winds, torrential rain and chunky hail, accompanied by
deafening thunder and spectacularly dramatic lightning, leave
an indelible impression of nature's more aggressive aspect.
'In autumn the green turns to a golden glow, to be followed
by the enchantment of winter when the prairy becomes whiteblanketed
for weeks on end, the snow lit by a low sun and the
bare trees affording long views across the frozen Fox river. By
day the slanting sunlight is reflected from the snowy surface on
to and into the house, projecting images of nature on to the
folds of the curtains and creating a softly luminous interior
ambience; by night the glittering snow reflects bright moonlight
into the house, mysteriously diminishing the boundary between
the man-made interior and the natural world outside.
'As winter passes the landscape becomes alive with the
fresh colours and fragrances of spring foliage, the latter slowly
closing in once again to define the secluded domain of the
home meadow.'

The diurnal cycle is as delightful. Of the sleeping area to the
east, a guest who stayed the night wrote that 'the sensation is
indescribable-the act of waking and coming to consciousness
as the light dawns and gradually grows. It illuminates the grass
and trees and the river beyond; it takes over your whole vision.
You are in nature and not in it, engulfed by it but separate from
it. It is altogether unforgettable.'77 Another frequent visitor adds:
The sunrise, of course, is ravishing. But the night as well,
especially during thunderstorms. Snowfalls are magical. And I
recall times when the river water rose almost to the level of the
floor, but not quite, so that we had to locomote by canoe... I
cannot recall a dull moment here."8
In sum: 'For those who have been fortunate enough to live in
it the healing qualities of the Farnsworth House confirm its
status as the nonpareil of country retreats.' (Peter Carter)
The second great strength of the Farnsworth House is its
perfection as an artefact. Steel, glass and travertine have been
integrated into a classical composition in which everything
looks right, from overall form down to the tiniest detail. The
result stands as an object lesson for all designers, and the core
of the lesson is that excellence cannot be achieved without an
insistenceon fine materials, consummate details and unremitting
design effort. This is especially true of 'honest' modern design,
in which components and joints are nakedly displayed as in a
Greek temple. Unlike traditional buildings, whose complex
mouldings and overlapping finishes and coverings may conceal
a host of imperfections, the clarity of such design allows few
hiding places, and it requires a Miesian drive for perfection to
achieve the results seen at Piano.79
Turning to weaknesses, the case against the Farnsworth
House is that it pretends to be what it is not in three respects:
as an exemplar of industrial materials and construction
methods; as an exemplar of rational problem-solving design;
and as a reproducible 'type-form' that might be widely adopted
for other dwellings-all of these being self-proclaimed aims of
Miesian design.80
On the first point, the Farnsworth House uses rolled steel
sections and plate glass to present itself as a model of industrial
-age construction when in fact it is an expensive artwork
fabricated largely by handcraft. A case for the defence was
suggested in 1960 by the architect and critic Peter Blake: that in
an age of throw-away products and, increasingly, throw-away
architecture, Mies was legitimately creating prototypes that the
construction industry of the future might strive to emulate; that
he saw his role as that of directing the course of industry, not
slavishly following it.81 Forty years on it looks as though Mies
may yet be vindicated - industrial technology is producing
objects of increasing perfection, and moving away from
standardized towards customized production; and twenty-firstcentury
industry could conceivably become capable of
delivering buildings of Miesian quality at normal cost.
On the second charge, it is undeniable that the Farnsworth
House suffers from serious and elementary design faults. It was
perfectly predictable that a badly-ventilated glass box, without
sun-shading except for some nearby trees, would become
oven-like in the hot Illinois summers, and that single-thickness
glass in steel frames, devoid of precautionary measures such
as convection heaters to sweep the glass with a warm air
current, would stream with condensation in an Illinois winter.
Mies's disregard of such elementary truths illustrates his
greatest weakness as an architect - namely, an obsession with
perfect form so single-minded that awkward problems were
loftily disregarded.K
That brings us to the third of the points raised above -
whether the Farnsworth House might serve as a reproducible
'type-form'. It seems clear that Mies intended the concept of
the Farnsworth House for wider application. His broadly similar
50 ft by 50 ft (15m x 15m) House project of 1950-1, which he
reportedly thought suitable for mass-production for American
family housing,83 was open-plan and glass-walled, and shared
with the 55 ft by 29 ft (16.8m x 8.8m) Farnsworth House a lack
of privacy, lack of storage space, and very little adaptability
apart from the occupants' freedom to move the furniture. For
normal living these are crippling defects.
Though Mies insisted to the end of his days that open
interiors were practical and preferable to conventional rooms,84
this cannot possibly be true for dwellings unless they are large
enough to ensure privacy by distance - which means very large
indeed: it is significant that the over 80 ft x 50 ft (24m x 15m)
open-plan living room of the successful Tugendhat House is
three-and-a-half times the size of an entire floor of the Riehl
House or Perls House. As to storage space, it is difficult to
imagine a family inhabiting the 50 ft by 50 ft house - or even the
60 ft x 60 ft (18m x 18m) version - when the bachelor aesthete
Philip Johnson's 56 ft by 32 ft (17m x 9.8m) single-space 1949
Glass House at New Canaan depended on the existence of
several nearby buildings to which possessions, guests and
other intrusions of everyday life could be conveniently
banished. In this connection Peter Blake writes that the
traditional Japanese open plan that so inspired Frank Lloyd
Wright and other twentieth-century architects depended
absolutely, even in that age of sparse possessions, on servants
and subservient wives constantly spiriting away the clutter of
everyday living into special areas outside the open plan.85
Clearly the Farnsworth House fails as a normal dwelling, and
as a prototype for normal dwellings. But turning to happier
things, it undeniably provides a supreme model for a belvedere,
a garden pavilion or even a holiday dwelling, provided the client
truly understands what he or she is getting, as the unfortunate
Dr Farnsworth probably did not. One of the contractors on her
house, Karl Freund, later told the writer David Spaeth, 'she
didn't understand the house. Mies should have made it clearer
to her what she was getting.'86 Buildings very obviously inspired
by the Farnsworth House include the 1970 Tallon House in
Dublin, Ireland by Ronnie Tallon; the 1992 Villa Maesen at
Zedelgem, Belgium by Stephane Beel; and the 1998 Skywood
House in Middlesex, England by Graham Phillips.87
In sum: the crystalline masterpiece on the riverside at Piano
is a rare building for a rare client, to be emulated selectively andwith very great care

Postscript
In 1971 Dr Edith Farnsworth vacated the famous pavilion that
had become so deeply intertwined with her life and would
always bear her name. Her original devotion to the house had
evaporated in the quarrel with Mies: she never furnished it
properly and angrily discouraged visits. She had nevertheless
continued to own and use it until finally demoralized by a new
misfortune.
In the 1960s the Board of Supervisors of Kendall County
decided to widen and re-align the road and bridge along the
western boundary of the site. These works required the
purchase of a 60m (200 ft) wide strip of Dr Farnsworth's land, a
proposal she vigorously contested. There followed a painful
battle with the County authority, culminating in a court hearing
after which the ground was compulsorily purchased. In 1967
the authorities built a new road that was twice the width of the
old, raised on an embankment, 45m (150 ft) closer to the house
and clearly visible therefrom. The traffic was now faster and
noisier than before, and audible from the house.
The once quiet and secluded retreat was no longer quite so
magical, and in 1968 Dr Farnsworth advertised it for sale. Thus,
with tragic symmetry, her twenty-year occupation of a house
she had commissioned with love and enthusiasm ended as it
had begun-with a traumatic court hearing ending in defeat.88
The offer to sell came to the notice of Mr Peter (now Lord)
Palumbo, a London property developer and lover of modern
architecture with a particular respect for the works of Mies van
der Rohe. Knowing of Dr Farnsworth's severe reputation he
risked entering the grounds to look at the house, and decided at
once that he must buy. Taking his life in his hands, as he put it,
he knocked on the door. 'I essentially bought the house that
afternoon', he later recalled, 'but she was a difficult, ferocious
woman and we didn't really complete the deal until 1972.'
Lord Palumbo's original dream that Mies van der Rohe might
be commissioned to restore to perfection his own twenty-yearold
building was cruelly thwarted when the latter died in 1969.
The commission was therefore given in 1972 to Dirk Lohan,
Mies's grandson and a partner in Conterato, Fugikawa and
Lohan, the successor-office to Mies's atelier.85
The principal works required were the following.90
With respect to structure, the flat roof (an inherently trouble
prone form of construction in cold climates'1) had deteriorated
quite badly: condensation had caused staining, bubbling and
cracking of the plastered underside, and the paint finish on the
latter had begun to peel away. To improve its performance a
vapour barrier was installed above the plaster, additional
insulation laid above the pre-cast concrete planks, and a new
waterproof membrane laid on the upper surface. On the
underside the damaged plaster and paint were replaced.
The mosquito screens were removed from the terrace, the
white finish to all steelwork was stripped back to the primer
coat and repainted, and all the glass panels were replaced.
With respect to services, all the existing installations received
a major overhaul. The original space-heating principles (floorembedded
coils for main heating, augmented by fan-induced
hot air for quick warming-up) were left unchanged, but the
oil-fired heating system, which was dirty and cumbersome,
was converted to electricity. All the wiring in the house was
replaced. The 'almost nothing' hearth with its propensity for
spreading ash was given atravertine platform. Air-conditioning
(a rare luxury when the Farnsworth House was designed in the
1940s) was newly installed, and the plant concealed above the
service core.

And finally the interior, which Dr Farnsworth had filled with a
miscellany of inappropriate articles (see for instance the photo
on p.21 of Schulze, The Farnsworth House), was at last furnished
as first intended. Her roller blinds were replaced with off-white
curtains as envisaged by Mies, and the prosaic furniture
replaced by a few classic pieces placed almost as sparingly
and precisely as exhibits in an art gallery. The black glass table
with chrome legs seen near the entrance in some published
photographs is a rare survivor of the Barcelona Pavilion.
Turning from the building to its setting, Lord Palumbo immediately
removed the crazy-paving pathway to the front steps
and put in hand a gradual improvement programme for the
entire site, which had been neglected for twenty years.
During her ownership Dr Farnsworth had bought an additional
55 acres of land to the east of the original seven-acre site,
creating the potential for a relocated and more discreet car
access route. Now Lord Palumbo commissioned the American
garden designer Lanning Roper, a devotee of informal English
garden design, to replan the landscape substantially.
In its original state the house looked out east, north and west
on terrain with grassland, natural shrub and a scattering of
trees. At first Lord Palumbo tried to enhance the sense of unspoilt
nature by allowing the grass surrounding the Farnsworth House
to grow tall, in effect creating a meadow. But the long grass
proved difficult to cut and became a fertile breeding-ground for
mosquitoes. The grass is now regularly mown, with the cutters
set at their highest level.
Lanning Roper planted trees to the east and west, leaving
the space directly behind and north of the house as a tract of
lawn that slopes lazily upward toward River Road. This open
space he filled with daffodils, literally tens of thousands of them,
which blossom progressively in the spring, leaving the ground
decorated with patches of yellow and white. The moment of
bloom is brief but compelling, and the landscape hardly less
compelling later, when the flowers give way to a meadow wholly
of summery green.'92
The new stands of trees to the north, east and west now
provide an enclosure for the house and the scenic backdrop
that is seen through the transparent walls.
Roper also replanned the access route, moving the access
gate nearly 200m (650 ft) to the east of the original, out of sight
of the house, and laying a gravel drive that sweeps gently round
from the north to terminate in a new parking area 45m (150 ft)
from the south-eastern corner of the house. When visitors
arrive at this riverside parking space they leave their cars, cross
a modest timber bridge that arches over a small stream, and
make their way to towards the house through a landscape
dotted with trees. There is no pathway across the meadow, so
that the house is gradually revealed through the foliage.
The new approach, which involves walking the full length
of the house before turning at right angles towards the flight
of access steps, has therefore become more dramatic than
the simple 'house in a meadow' arrangement created by
Mies.93

The above improvements deserve high praise, but many
visitors have felt that the road realignments by Kendall
County, the designation of the opposite river bank as a
public park, and the creation of relatively lawn-like grass
in place of the original untended meadow, have combined
to transform an isolated retreat into what is essentially a
suburban house - a depressing fate shared by several
other icons of twentieth-century architecture including
Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye and Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin
West.
A worse development has been a steep rise in the floodlevels
of the Fox River. Mies van der Rohe's enquiries in 1946
established a maximum water level over the past century of
about 0.9m (3 ft) above ground-level, and he considered it
safe to locate the floor 1.6m (5 ft 3 in) above the plain. But,
partly as a result of the outward expansion and paving-over
of Chicago's environs, the volume of water run-off increased
and flood levels began to rise dramatically in the 1950s.
In 1954, three years after Dr Farnsworth moved in, the
spring flood rose 1.2m (4ft) above the pavilion floor. Carpets
and furniture were ravaged but the water-marked wooden
core unit was fortunately reparable.
In 1996 came a truly gigantic downpour, with 0.45m (18 in)
of rain falling in 24 hours, most of it in eight hours. The
resulting floodwaters broke two of the glass walls, rose 1.5m
(5 ft) above the pavilion floor, swept away artefacts, and
ruined not only carpets and furniture but also the woodveneer
finish to the core. An unpleasant layer of mud and silt
covered the travertine floor and the damage came to over
$500,000.
As Lord Palumbo has put it, the house had to be 'taken
apart and put together again', and DirkLohan, now of the
architectural firm Lohan Associates, was commissioned to
carry out the necessary restoration.84 The timber core unit
was so badly damaged that it had to be discarded and built
anew. As the once-plentiful primavera was now almost
extinct Dirk Lohan had to search for months to find wood of
the original colour. The new plywood panels were attached
to their frames by clips rather than screws so that the panels
could be quickly dismantled and stored on top of the core
unit in case of flood.
In February 1997, even before the above restoration had
started, there was yet another flood, rising to only 0.30 m (1
ft) above floor level but confirming that the Farnsworth
House must henceforth survive in conditions very different
from those for which it had been designed. There has been
talk of installing jacks beneath the footings, able to lift the
entire structure in case of flood, but this phenomenally
expensive solution remains conjectural. Since buying the
house Lord Palumbo has spent roughly $1 million on repairs
and improvements, mostly in restoration work after the
floods of 1996 and 1997, and one can understand a pause
for deliberation. These days the water regularly rises two or
three steps above the lower terrace, and occasionally a foot
or so above internal floor level, bringing in a layer of silt but
not (so far) causing ruin.
Despite the double irony that a dwelling designed as a
private retreat is now open to the public, and that its survival
is being threatened by the element it was specifically
designed to surmount, this chronicle can nevertheless end
on an uplifting note. Mies van der Rohe's glass pavilion,
having survived fifty troubled years, has become one of the
most revered buildings of the twentieth century, constantly
visited by admirers from all over the world.

The Farnsworth House

2009-10-04T13:23:00.000+03:00

The Farnsworth House has this in common with Cannery Row
in Monterey, California: it is a poem, a quality of light, atone, a
habit, a nostalgia, a dream. It has about it, also, an aura of high
romance. The die for the romance was cast from the moment
Mies van der Rohe decided to site the house next to the great
black sugar maple - one of the most venerable in the county -
that stands immediately to the south, within a few yards of the
bank of the Fox River. The rhythms created by the juxtaposition
of the natural elements and the man-made object can be seen
at a glance - tree bending over house in a gesture of caress, a
never-ending love affair - and felt - when the leaves of the tree
brush the panes of glass on the southern elevation. In summer,
the dense foliage of the sugar maple shields the house from the
torrid heat and ensures its privacy from the river.
With its glass walls suspended on steel pilot! almost two
metres above the flood plain of the meadow, life inside the
house is very much a balance with nature, and an extension of
nature. A change in the season or an alteration of the landscape
creates a marked change in the mood inside the house. With
an electric storm of Wagnerian proportions illuminating the
night sky and shaking the foundations of the house to their very
core, it is possible to remain quite dry! When, with the melting
of the snows in spring, the Fox River becomes a roaring torrent
that bursts its banks, the house assumes the character of a
house-boat, the water level sometimes rising perilously close to
the front door. On such occasions, the approach to the house
is by canoe, which is tied up to the steps of the upper terrace.

The overriding quality of the Farnsworth House is one of
serenity. It is a very quiet house. I think this derives from the
ordered logic and clarity of the whole, from the way in which
the house has been lovingly crafted, and from the sensitive
juxtaposition of fine materials. Anxiety, stress or sheer fatigue
drop away almost overnight, and problems that had seemed
insoluble assume minor proportions after the 'therapy' exerted
by the house has washed over them for a few hours.
The start of the day is very important to me. At Farnsworth,
the dawn can be seen or sensed from the only bed in the
house, which is placed in the northeast corner. The east
elevation of the house tends to be a bit poker-faced - the dawn
greets the house more than the house welcomes the dawn.
Shortly after sunrise the early morning light, filtering through the
branches of the linden tree, first dapples and then etches the
silhouette of the leaves in sharp relief upon the curtain. It is a
scene no Japanese print could capture to greater effect.
People ask me how practical Farnsworth is to live in. As a
home for a single person, it performs extremely well. It was
never intended for anything else. The size of its single room,
55 ft by 28 ft, is a guarantee of its limitations. On the other hand,
for short periods of time it is possible to sleep three people in
comfort and privacy. This is a measure of the flexibility of the
space, and indeed it would be odd if this were not so, for
flexibility is a hallmark of Mies's work.
I believe that houses and structures are not simply inanimate
objects, but have a 'soul' of their own, and the Farnsworth
House is no exception. Before owning the house I had always
imagined that steel and glass could not possess this quality -
unlike brick, for example, which is a softer, more porous
material that seems to absorb as well as emanate a particular
atmosphere. But steel and glass are equally responsive to the
mood of the moment. The Farnsworth House is equable by
inclination and nature. It never frowns. It is sometimes sad, but
rarely forlorn. Most often it smiles and chuckles, especially
when it is host to children's laughter and shouts of delight. It
seems to eschew pretension and to welcome informality.

Living in the house I have gradually become aware of a very
special phenomenon: the man-made environment and the
natural environment are here permitted to respond to, and to
interact with, each other. While this may deviate from the
dogma of Rousseau or the writings of Thoreau, the effect is
essentially the same: that of being at one with Nature, in its
broadest sense, and with oneself.
If the start of the day is important, so is the finish. That tone
and quality of light shared with Cannery Row is seldom more
evident than at dusk, with its graduations of yellow, green, pink
and purple. At such times, one can see forever and with
astonishing clarity. Sitting outside on the upper deck one feels
like the lotus flower that floats in the water and never gets wet.
In November, a harvest moon rises slowly behind the tree-line,
as if giving a seal of approval to the day that has just gone by.
Later on, in January, when the winter snows have begun to fall
and the landscape is transformed, cars sweep silently past the
property along frozen roads, and the magical stillness of the
countryside is broken only by the plangent barking of a dog,
perhaps three miles distant.
In a low-lying meadow beside the Fox River at Piano, Illinois,
stands a serene pavilion of glass, steel and travertine.
When built it was unlike any known house, and a description
written by the American critic Arthur Drexler soon after its
completion in 1951 captures its essence: The Farnsworth
House consists of three horizontal planes: a terrace, a floor,
and a roof. Welded to the leading edge of each plane are steel
columns which keep them all suspended in mid-air. Because
they do not rest on the columns, but merely touch them in
passing, these horizontal elements seem to be held to their
supports by magnetism. Floor and roof appear as opaque
planes defining the top and bottom of a volume whose sides are
simply large panels of glass. The Farnsworth House is, indeed,
a quantity of air caught between a floor and a roof."
In spring the pavilion stands on a carpet of daffodils, in
summer upon a green meadow, in autumn amid the glow of
golden foliage; and when the adjacent river overflows the house
resembles a boat floating on the great expanse of water. It is in
effect a raised stage from which an entranced viewer may not
merely observe ever-changing nature, but almost experience
the sensation of being within it.
It is Mies van der Rohe's last realized house, built to provide a
cultivated and well-to-do urbanite with a quiet retreat where she
could enjoy nature and recover from the cares of work.
The rural escape for busy city-dwellers has a long history,
either as country villa2 or, more modestly, as the simple shooting
or fishing lodge.3 But while its function was fairly well established
in architectural tradition, the form and appearance of
Farnsworth House went to the extremes of modernism, neatly
inverting (as we shall see) most of the architectural devices
developed over the past 2,500 years.
In view of its status as an architectural landmark we should
try to locate this luculent design in two contexts - one personal
(the Farnsworth House as the culmination of the architect's 40-
year sequence of continually-evolving house designs) and the
other much wider (the Farnsworth House as an ultimate icon of
that strand of European modernism that became known as the
International Style) - before going on to more practical matters
such as why the house was built, how it was built, and how it
has performed.
A consummation of Miesian design
At first sight Mies's first and last built houses, the Riehl House of
1907 and the Farnsworth House of 40 years later, could hardly
be more different. Beneath the contrasting appearances,
though, there is a recognizable continuity of design approach.
From first to last there shines through Mies's work a dignified
serenity, a concern for regularity and orderliness, and a
precision of detailing that are just as important as the obvious
differences seen in successive stages of his work.
These differences were not capricious but reflect a continuous
and sustained effort - particularly after about 1920 - to
eliminate what the earnest Mies saw as inessentials and to distil
his buildings to some kind of irreducible architectonic essence
of the age."
While it is always a mistake to impose an unduly neat 'line of
development' on the complex, uncertain and partly accidental
career of any designer, as though each successive work represented
a calculated step towards a clearly foreseen goal,
hindsight does allow us to divide Mies's development into three
recognizable phases. The first was pre-1919, when his designs
were invariably solid, regular and soberly traditional. The
second covered the years 1919-38, when he began to
experiment (though only in some of his designs) with such
entrancing novelties as irregular plans, interiors designed as
continuous flowing fields rather than separate rooms, extreme
horizontal transparency, and floating floor and roof planes. The
third was post-1938, when he returned to the classicism and
sobriety of his earlier years, but expressed now in steel-framed
buildings rather than solid masonry, and incorporating the
transparency and (in some of the pavilions) emphatic horizontality
developed in his avant-garde projects of the 1920s.
The first of these formative periods had its roots in Mies's
youth in Aachen where, the son of a master mason, he came to
love the town's historic buildings. He later recalled that 'few of
them were important buildings. They were mostly very simple,
but very clear. I was impressed by the strength of these buildings
because they did not belong to any epoch. They had been there
for over a thousand years and were still impressive, and nothing
could change that. All the great styles passed, but they were
still there ... as good as on the day they were built.'5
This early affinity with sober clarity was confirmed in 1907
when he visited Italy and was deeply impressed by his first
sight of Roman aqueducts, the heroic ruins of the Basilica of
Constantine, and in particular the bold stonework facade of the
Palazzo Pitti with its cleanly-cut window openings, of which he
said: 'You see with how few means you can make architectureand
what architecture!'
And it crystallized into coherent principle when in 1912, on
a visit to the Netherlands, Mies encountered the work of
Hendrik Petrus Berlage. He was particularly struck by Berlage's
Amsterdam Stock Exchange (1903), an outstanding example of
the 'monolothic' way of building - that is to say one in which the
materials of construction are nakedly displayed (like the marble
components of Greek temples), in contradiction to the layered'
approach where basic materials are covered by more sophisticated
claddings (like the walls of Roman architecture). The
Stock Exchange walls are of unplastered brickwork inside and
out, and the roof trusses completely exposed, so that there is
no distinction between what is structure and what is finish,
or between what is structure and what is architecture.7 Mies
later recollected that it was at that point 'that the idea of a clear
construction came to me as one of the fundamentals we should
accept.'8 What especially appealed to him was Berlage's 'careful
construction that was honest down to the bone', forming the
basis, as Mies saw it, of 'a spiritual attitude [that] had nothing to
do with classicism, nothing to do with historic styles.'8
Between these mutually reinforcing experiences in Aachen,
Italy and Amsterdam there was a somewhat different influence
- that of the German neo-classicist Karl Friedrich Schinkel,
whose works Mies came to know while working in the Berlin
studio of Peter Behrens between 1908 and 1912.10 Mies did
not particularly admire Schinkel's early work, which to him
represented the end of a past era, but he considered that the
Bauakademie of 1831-5 'introduced a new epoch'. The lessons
he absorbed from Schinkel were concerned less with honest
construction (though the facades of the Kaufhaus project of
1827 and the later Bauakademie did reflect their underlying
structures with notable clarity) than with architectonic
composition. His compositional borrowings from Schinkel
included a tendency to place buildings on raised platforms to
create a sense of noble repose; a stern sobriety of architectural
form; highly regular spacing and careful proportioning of facade
elements; and an exceptional clarity of articulation, with the
separate elements of the building clearly differentiated.'
Here, then, were two complementary influences that would
preoccupy Mies for the rest of his life - a Berlage-like affinity
with 'honesty' that led him to theorize that building form should
be determined by the structural problem being solved, and the
materials employed, and not by abstract rules of composition;12
counter-balanced by a Schinkelesque love of classical form
that led him in the converse direction, yearning to develop
architectural forms of abstracted perfection. He was aware of
the conflict, saying in 1966: 'After Berlage I had to fight with
myself to get away from the classicism of Schinkel"3 - a battle
he seems largely to have lost, with the compositional
sophistication of Schinkel generally prevailing over the rude
honesty of Berlage.14
Had his development stopped at that point, Mies might have
spent the rest of his career as a consummate designer of
somewhat blocky buildings characterized by clarity, regularity
and discipline (derived from Schinkel); making increasing use of
exposed brickwork (inspired by Berlage); and showing also the
powerful forms and glassiness of Peter Behrens"5 and the open
interiors, powerful outward thrust and emphatic horizontality of
Frank Lloyd Wright.16
It took years of digestion before 'inputs' became 'outputs'
with the gradually-developing Mies; and while some of the
above characteristics are indeed visible in the severe
monumentality of the Bismarck Memorial (1910) and Kroller
House (1912) projects, others were only to appear much later.
One thinks for instance of the fluid interior and outwardthrusting
composition of the Brick Country House project
(1923-4), and of the cubic forms and immaculately-detailed
brickwork of the Wolf (1925-7), Esters (1927-30) and Lange
(1927-30) houses. These designs are especially notable for
their Berlage-like use of weighty, unplastered brickwork walls
at a time when European modernism strove mostly for a
smooth, white, lightweight appearance.

After returning from military service in January 1919, Mies
underwent an astonishing transformation, and began a distinct
second developmental phase. Berlin was then in a ferment of
avant-garde activity, both political and artistic; Mies was
willingly caught up in these movements," and in 1921 he began
to produce a sequence of projects that bore little resemblance
to anything he (or indeed anyone else) had done before. These
designs, manifesto-like in their vivid clarity, helped to change
the face of twentieth-century architecture, and their influence
would be unmistakably visible in the later Farnsworth House.
His experiments from 1919-38 involved progressive transformations
of the kind of space that is shaped by architecture,
and of the kind of structure that helps do the shaping.
The Glass Skyscraper project of 1922 (figure 10), with its
open interiors and transparent envelope and its clear distinction
between structure (slim columns and hovering slabs) and
claddings (a diaphonous skin), presents a vivid illustration of
Mies's spatial and structural ideas.18 But this project is an office
building, and the specific antecedents of the Farnsworth House
are more appropriately traced in his house designs, so it is to
those that we must turn.
Looking then at Mies's development in the specific context
of house design, his spatial ideas may be summarized as
follows. First he started to dissolve the interior subdivisions of
the dwelling, moving away from the box-like rooms of traditional
western architecture towards more open interiors - the latter
probably showing the intertwined influences of Frank Lloyd
Wright, the Japanese house" and the De Stijl movement.2'
The first hints of this progressive opening-up and thinning-out
of the interior appear in the unrealized Brick Country House
project. Its Berlage-like brick walls, while as solidly-built and
densely-packed as those of the past, are loosely arranged to
suggest rather than enclose a series of doorless spaces that
substituted for rooms.21 The idea is partly realized in the
1928-30 Tugendhat House, whose main floor is opened up to
become a single space within which dining, living and study
areas are lightly suggested by screens of maccassar ebony,
onyx and translucent glass. The final step, via a series of unbuilt
projects,2Z is the Farnsworth House which has no full-height
internal subdivisions except for a service core enclosing
separate bathrooms and a utility room.
Parallel to the above process Mies also started to dissolve
the boundary between inside and outside. The plan of the
unbuilt Brick Country House, while clearly influenced by Frank
Lloyd Wright,23 opens out into the site in a way unprecedented
in western architecture. The Glass Room at the Werkbund
Exhibition of 1927 uses glass walls to reduce the distinction
between inside and outside. And finally came the 1928-9
Barcelona Pavilion, an assembly of free-standing partitions
under a floating roof in which it is quite impossible to say at
what point 'inside' becomes 'outside'. Though in many ways
hauntingly house-like (hence its inclusion in this genealogy)
this was a non-inhabited pavilion with no need for enclosing
walls, thus allowing the architect to take liberties that would be
impossible in a true dwelling.2" But once conceived, the idea
kept re-emerging in subsequent house designs (see figures
19-22) and again reaches a climax in the glass-walled
Farnsworth House.
The spatial opening-up of the house described above was
interconnected with the parallel development of Mies's
structural ideas from the early 1920s to the early 1940s.
Mies's long-standing love of clearly-displayed structure
found a natural means of expression in the steel-framed
apartment and office buildings of Chicago, where he settled in
1938,25 and where his third period of development as suggested
on p.7 may be said to have begun. The outcome of his engagement
with the Chicago steel frame, seen to perfection in the
Farnsworth House, was what he himself referred to as 'skin
and bones' design - a thin external skin (preferably glass) fitted
to a skeletal frame (preferably steel) of the utmost clarity and
elegance, with maximum differentiation between load-bearing
frame and non-load-bearing skin.26
In this last period his work underwent a marked change of
temper. Seemingly sated with the irregular plans and freefloating
planes of the avant-garde experiments of the 1920s,
Mies rather surprisingly reverted after about 1938 to the sober
classicism of his early architecture, shown now in buildings with
steel frames rather than stone. All that survives from the 1920s
projects is a very modern transparency and (in some of his
pavilions) a use of floating planes.
Two points must be added to the above analysis. While the
essentially aesthetic experiments with space and structure
outlined above are the central story of Mies's second and third
phases of evolution as a designer, it would bean oversimplification
to see the form and appearance of the Farnsworth
House as the outcome only of aesthetic concerns.
There were also social issues at work. Nineteenth-century
European cities were haunted by disease, particularly
tuberculosis; and Mies shared a widespread early-twentiethcentury
yearning for a new way of living that would be simpler,
cleaner and healthier than before. The theme of wholesome
living in airy, sunny rooms (in contrast with the stuffy, dusty and
over-furnished buildings of nineteenth-century architecture) is
seen in countless early twentieth-century writings, architectural
and other, and led naturally to the clinically white, glassy and
sparsely furnished buildings of Mies and his contemporaries.
And there was, secondly, a spiritual aspect. Throughout his
life the apparently technology-driven Mies van der Rohe was
actually an earnest searcher after the deeper meanings behind
everyday existence.27 Some time between 1924 and 1927
he moved to the view that 'building art is always the spatial
expression of spiritual decisions' and began to gravitate away
from the rather mechanistic functionalists of the Neue
Sachlichkeit ('new objectivity') movement.28 He had for many
years been pondering the writings of Catholic philosophers
such as St Thomas Aquinas, and now discovered a new book
by Siegfried Ebeling titled DerRaum als Membran. This was
a mystical tract which treated the building as an enclosing
membrane forming a space for concentration and mystic
celebration.29 It is clear from the underlinings in Mies's personal
copy that he took Ebeling's arguments seriously.
Though this period of spirituality seems to have faded somewhat
after his Barcelona Pavilion, and he gradually returned to
drier and more objective design attitudes as noted above, the
dignified serenity of pavilions such as the Farnsworth House
and the New National Gallery in Berlin (1962-8) bear witness to
Mies's abiding preoccupation with the creation of orderly, noble
and indeed quasi-spiritual spaces in our turbulent world.
The outcome at Fox River of all the themes traced above -
aesthetic, social and spiritual - is a tranquil weekend house
of unsurpassed clarity, simplicity and elegance. Every physical
element has been distilled to its irreducible essence.
The
products-even if the effect had to be faked, as it usually was.
Where traditional buildings were ornamented, modern buildings
must be bare. Where traditional houses had rooms, modern
ones must be open-plan. Where traditional rooms were thickly
carpeted and curtained, and densely filled with furniture and
bric-a-brac, modern ones must have hard, clean surfaces and
be virtually devoid of furniture and possessions.
And so on. Though there were important continuities
between classicism and modernism,37 stylistic inversions such
as those above (and others which interested readers may trace
for themselves) dominated the mostly white, glassy, flatsurfaced,
sparsely-furnished buildings selected for publication
in 1932 in The International Style, five of them by Mies van der
Rohe.38 In the Farnsworth House these characteristics are taken
so far, and distilled into a composition of such elegance and
single-minded clarity, that it can stand as a late icon of what the
International Style of the late 1920s and early 1930s had been
'trying to be'.
Client, site and brief
In late 1945 Mies van der Rohe, then aged 59 and still relatively
unknown in America,33 met (probably at a dinner party) an
intelligent and art-conscious 42-year-old Chicago medical
specialist called Edith Farnsworth.40 She mentioned in conversation
that she owned a riverside site on the Fox River, about 60
miles west of Chicago, and was thinking of building there a
weekend retreat. She wondered aloud whether his office might
be interested. He was, and after several excursions to the site
with Edith Farnsworth he was given the commission.
It was, for Mies, an ideal challenge. A cabin for weekend use
by a single person was the kind of programme to which he best
responded. Rather like the Barcelona Pavilion of 1928-941 the
Farnsworth House was a project in which the tiresome realities
of everyday life (the need for privacy, the accumulation of
possessions, the daily litter and clutter) could be disregarded
in a single-minded quest for transcendental elegance.
The site was a narrow seven-acre strip of deciduous
woodland beside the Fox River. Its southern boundary was
formed by the river-bank and a thin line of trees; the northern
boundary by a gentle grassy rise and a thicker grove of trees,
along which ran a minor public road giving access to the site.
The eastern boundary was also formed by a grove of trees;
and the western boundary by Fox River Drive, the main road to
Piano. Between these features lay a grassy meadow, idyllically
isolated except for the (then) lightly-used road to the west.
Initial progress was rapid. Mies started designing within a
year, and a model closely resembling the final design was
exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1947.
He was ready to proceed but Dr Farnsworth had to wait for an
inheritance before authorizing a start on site. Construction
finally began in September 1949, and the house was completed
in 1951.
The lawsuit
By then, unfortunately, the initially sympathetic relationship
between architect and client had turned sour. Everyone who
knew them agrees that this was at least partly due to a failed
romance between Mies van der Rohe and Edith Farnsworth. At
the start of the project they worked closely together, had picnics
on the river bank, and Dr Farnsworth was breathlessly excited
by both the man and the emerging design. Recalling the evening
she first discussed the house with Mies she later said that 'the
effect was tremendous, like a storm, a flood, or an Act of God.'42
And in June 1946, a few months after that revelatory evening,
she sent Mies a handwritten letter:
'Dear Mies
It is impossible to pay in money for what is made by heart and soul!
Such work one can only recognize and cherish - with love and
respect. But the concrete world affects us both and I must
recognize that also and see that it is dealt with in some decent
fashion.
So, dear Mies, I am enclosing a cheque for one thousand [dollars]
on account, with full awareness of its inadequacy.
Faithfully yours Edith'
The romance went wrong, unkind remarks began to be made
on both sides,43 and in 1953 Mies sued Dr Farnsworth for unpaid
fees of $28,173. She countersued for $33,872, alleging a large
cost over-run on the original budget, a leaking roof and excessive
condensation on the glass walls.44
After a court hearing that must have been excruciatingly
painful for both sides, Mies van der Rohe and Edith Farnsworth
in mid-1953 agreed a $14,000 settlement in Mies's favour.
The battle continued outside the courtroom. Many architect
and critics had been overwhelmed by the clarity, polish and
precision of the design but the April 1953 issue of the more
populist (and in many respects more realistic) House Beautiful
attacked the house itself, the International Style of which it is an
exemplar, and the Bauhaus which was the seedbed of this kind
of design. The author, Elizabeth Gordon, accused the
architecture of being 'cold' and 'barren'; the furniture 'sterile',
'thin' and 'uncomfortable'; Mies's design as an attack on
traditional American values.45
Frank Lloyd Wright, who in the 1930s and early 1940s had
admired Mies's work and regarded him as a friend,48 joined in:
The International Style ... is totalitarianism. These Bauhaus
architects ran from political totalitarianism in Germany to what
is now made by specious promotion to seem their own
totalitarianism in art here in America ...""
Edith Farnsworth added her own angry comments, then and
later, about the general impossibility of living in her exquisite
glass pavilion. She complained that 'Mies talks about his "free
space", but the space is very fixed. I can't even put a clothes
hanger in my house without considering how it affects
everything from the outside'; and that 'I thought you could
animate a pre-determined, classic form like this with your own
presence. I wanted to do something meaningful and all I got
was this glib, false sophistication.'48 It may of course be that her
views were coloured by the extremity of her bitterness towards
Mies.49 As Professor Dieter Holm suggested to me in conversation,
had she envisaged her exquisite pavilion as a kind of
Japanese tea house in which she and her friend and mentor
would conduct exalted discussions about life and art;50 and
were her subsequent attacks an expression of rage at the man
who had let her down, rather than a comment on the house?
It seems likely. Despite her criticisms Edith Farnsworth
continued to use the house until 1971, though treating it with
scant respect. Adrian Gale saw it in 1958 and found 'a
sophisticated camp site rather than a weekend dreamhouse'.
When its subsequent purchaser Peter Palumbo visited Dr
Farnsworth in 1971 he was depressed to see an approach path
of crazy paving; the western terrace enclosed by mosquito
screens so that one entered the glass pavilion via a wire mesh
door; the once-beautiful primavera panels veneered to a
blackish, reddish colour; the floor space unpleasantly blocked
by mostly nondescript furniture; and the sink piled high with
dishes which had not been washed for several days.

A year later the Farnsworth House was sold, and entered

upon a happier phase of existence, as will be related in the
Postscript on p.24.
Planning
Before turning to the planning of the Farnsworth House itself,
that of its immediate predecessors must be considered. The
emphatic horizontal planes, glass-walled transparency and
open interiors which Mies had been perfecting since 1921
had come together in a sublime synthesis in the Barcelona
Pavilion.51 Having crystallized his ideas in that essentially
ceremonial and functionless building, where such experiments
in abstraction could be carried out relatively freely, Mies began
also to incorporate them in a sequence of house designs.
The first of these was a grand residence for Fritz and Grete
Tugendhat, which Mies was actually in the process of designing
when he was commissioned to undertake the Barcelona
Pavilion. The Tugendhats were enlightened newly-weds who
wanted a modern house with generous spaces and clear,
simple forms; and who were aware of Mies's work. They
arranged a meeting in 1928 - and like many previous clients
(and his future client Dr Edith Farnsworth) were bowled over by
his massive presence and air of calm self-assurance. As Mrs
Tugendhat said later: 'From the first moment it was certain that
he was our man ... We knew we were in the same room with an
artist.' That was a common reaction among Mies's clients.52
Architect-client relations were not quite as smooth as here
implied, but the project went ahead. The Tugendhat House was
completed in 1930 and represented a decisive step away from
the solid 'block' houses Mies had been building only two years
earlier (the Esters and Lange houses of 1927-30), and towards
the transparent 'pavilion' houses he would be designing in the
future. The living room was extensive and tranquil, enclosed by
glass walls so transparent that the outer landscape and sky
seemed almost to form the room boundaries. The room was
subtly zoned into conversation, dining, study and library areas
by only two or three free-standing partitions and a few
precisely-placed pieces of furniture. It was virtually empty
except for these artwork-like items of furniture, and there was
no allowance for pictures on the walls.

In another pre-figuration of the Farnsworth House the
colours were predominantly neutral and unassertive. The floor
was covered in creamy, off-white linoleum. There was a black
silk curtain before the glass wall by the winter garden; a silverygrey
silk curtain before the main glass wall; the library could be
closed off by a white velvet curtain; and a black velvet curtain
ran between the onyx wall and the winter garden. This neutral
backdrop heightened the dramatic effect of a few carefullydevised
focal points - the rich black-and-brown ebony curved
partition; the tawny-gold onyx flat partition; the emerald-green
leather, ruby-red velvet, and white vellum furniture claddings;
and the lush green jungle of plants filling the winter garden.
After many experimental drawing-board projects Mies was
beginning to realize in built form that 'puritanical vision of
simplified, transcendental existence' referred toon p. 13.
This vision had its negative side, and along with the plaudits
the Tugendhat House began to attract comments of a kind
that would recur with the Farnsworth House. Gropius called
it a 'Sunday house', questioning its suitability for everyday
living, and a critic asked unkindly, 'Can one live in House
Tugendhat?' -a question the Tugendhats answered with an
impassioned 'yes'.53
There followed the House for a Childless Couple at the Berlin
Fair (1931), which distinctly recalls the Barcelona Pavilion; and
then a series of unbuilt Courtyard House designs (1931-8) in
which Mies tested on confined urban sites the concept of openplan
interiors, sheltering beneath horizontal roof planes and
looking out on to gardens via glass walls. One-, two- or threecourt
houses were planned, the entire site in each case being

surrounded by a brick wall. Within the privacy of these enclosures
each individual house faced its courtyard via a thin-framed,
ceiling-height glass wall. Interiors consisted of few rooms and
large areas of continuous, fluid space very reminiscent of the
Brick Country House project; and roofs were lightly supported
on the external walls plus four to eight slender columns, leaving
the internal partitions free of all load-bearing function. Space
flowed freely through the interiors and out into the courtyards.
Each walled enclosure was effectively one large 'room', part of
which was indoors and part outdoors - an intermediate stage to
the Farnsworth House where the entire surrounding meadow
would become an extension of the glass-walled interior.
In 1937-8, as Mies was in the process of emigrating to
Chicago, came the immediate forerunner of the Farnsworth
House. This was a design (alas, unbuilt) for a summer residence
for Mr and Mrs Stanley Resor bridging a small river in Wyoming.54
Very appropriately for-his first American building, the central
'bridge' section of the house was a long steel-framed box.
This was raised slightly clear of the site, formed a glass-walled
living area, and had no internal divisions except for furniture and
a fireplace.
Interestingly, Mies's previous intimate incorporation of
houses into their landscapes begins here to give way to a
distinct separation between the man-made object and nature.55
In the past, the interior spaces (the wings of the house) and
exterior spaces (the gardens and courtyards) were intimately
interlocked in projects as late as the Esters and Lange houses.
Here, while the ends of the Resor House - whose foundations

were inherited by Mies from an earlier design for that site - are
firmly rooted to the site, the bridge-like central section parts
company with the landscape, hovering aloofly above an
untouched site. By a quirk of fate the site problem which
generated this elevated geometry - regular floodwaters -
would recur with his next house.
In 1946, on Dr Farnsworth's plot beside the Fox River, Mies
could finally bring all these gradually-evolved ideas to their
ultimate conclusion.
His most fundamental decision involved the relationship
between the building and the landscape - a relationship that
aimed at bringing nature, the house and human beings together
into 'a higher unity', as he put it.
The house stands about 1.6 metres (just over 5 ft) above the
surrounding meadow, leaving the site completely undisturbed
and giving its occupants a magnificent belvedere from which to
contemplate the surrounding woodland. The practical reason
for the raised floor is that the meadow is a floodplain, but Mies
has characteristically managed to transmute a technical solution
to an aesthetic masterstroke. Being elevated, the house is
detached from disorderly reality and becomes an exalted place
for contemplation -safe, serene and perfect in all its smooth,
machine-made details.
The basic arrangement of the Farnsworth House was quickly
settled, but the precise layout went through the usual painstaking
process of Miesian fine-tuning (his most characteristic
injunction to students and design assistants was, it is said, to
'work on it some more'). Literally hundreds of preliminary

drawings were produced, and these show Mies trying out
several alternative positions for the access stairs, the central
core and other minor elements before achieving finality.56 Note,
for instance, on figure 27, the two glass screens separating the
kitchen space from the rest of the house - Mies's last halfhearted
attempt at traditional boxed-in rooms before going for
a completely undivided living area.57
Another abandoned idea was the enclosure of the western
terrace by insect-proof screening. The screens were shown
on the model exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in 1947,
but Mies never liked these transparency-destroying elements
and the house was built without them. (In fact practicality would
soon triumph over aesthetics, and the idea had to be resurrected
after Dr Farnsworth moved into the house, owing to the
tormenting clouds of mosquitoes rising from the riverside
meadow every summer. Stainless steel screens were therefore
designed and installed at her request in 1951. The work was
done under Mies's supervision by his design assistant William
Dunlap, client/architect relations by then being frosty.58 The
screens were removed two decades later by the new owner
Peter Palumbo, and the mosquito-breeding meadow mown
down to a more lawn-like surface as will be related later.)
The interior as finally realized is a single glass-enclosed
space, unpartitioned except for a central service core. The
latter conceals two bathrooms (one for Dr Farnsworth, one for
visitors) and a utility room, and is set closer to the northern wall
than to the southern. This off-centre location creates a narrow
kitchen space to the north and a much larger living area to the

south. The long northern side of the core consists of a single run
of cabinets above a kitchen worktop, and the long southern
side incorporates a low, open hearth facing the living area. The
two short sides contain the entrance doors to the bathrooms.
The living area is zoned into a sleeping area on the east
(thus conforming with the excellent precept, going back to
Vitruvius's Sixth Book of Architecture, that bedrooms should
face east so that the sleeper wakes to the glory of the morning
sun), a dining area to the west, and a general sitting area
between the two. The sleeping zone is served by a freestanding
teak-faced cupboard.
Outside, the raised terrace to the west is a splendid place for
sitting at the end of the day, watching the sunset.
Turning from internal to external planning, it seems to have
been decided that allowing motor vehicles to drive right up to
the pavilion (a formative design factor in another twentiethcentury
country villa, Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye of 1929-31)
would impair the Farnsworth House's idyllic sense of seclusion.
Therefore Mies's design made no provision for car access.
Dr Farnsworth did subsequently build a conventional twocar
garage beside the gate on the northern boundary of the site,
where she presumably parked her car and walked across the
field to the house. Her visitors more commonly drove all the way
to the house and parked there. The disturbing presence of
garage, track and automobiles inevitably diminished the dreamlike
image of a small pavilion in remote woodland and, as
outlined on p.25, its next owner radically replanned the site to
overcome this defect.

THE GREAT CONSTRUCTIONS AROUND THE WORLD

2009-10-03T22:44:00.000+03:00

Let's see on these three videos ,the greatest masterpieces of architectural construction and many interesting buildings that have built around the world.

"ZIGGURAT" PROGECT

2008-08-30T01:04:00.000+03:00

Dubai-based Timelinks, an environmental design company, is to unveil their vision of a 'city of the future' at the upcoming Cityscape Dubai. The city – called the Ziggurat project – will be in the shape of a futuristic pyramid which, according to Timelinks, could support an entire community of up to one million people by harnessing the power of nature. Images and press release after the jump.But it is not just about reducing the carbon footprint. The 2.3 km² pyramid has many other benefits. “Whole cities can be accommodated in complexes which take up less than 10% of the original land surface. Public and private landscaping will be used for leisure pursuits or irrigated as agricultural land.The concept will also mean a better quality of life for the inhabitants. Transport throughout the complex would be connected by an integrated 360 degree network (horizontally and vertically) so cars would be redundant. Biometrics would provide security with facial recognition technology.Timelinks has already patented the design and technology incorporated into the project and has applied to the European Union for a grant for technical projects. A number of eminent professors from Europe will be on hand to explain the technicalities of how the Ziggurat project works and how these communities can be integrated in master projects.

sourse by :http://archinect.com/news/article.php?id=78602_0_24_0_C

:http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/theampersand/archive/2008/08/27/dubai -gets-ready-to-unveil-pyramid-of-the-future.aspx

ARCHITECTURE-MATERIALS

2008-05-18T08:04:00.000+03:00

Recycled-Content Corian Surfaces

DuPont™ Corian® has launched the Terra Collection, a selection of surfaces made with recycled materials. The collection includes 25 colors with third-party-certified levels of pre-consumer recycled content: seven colors contain at least 13 percent recycled content, and 18 colors contain at least six percent. These low-VOC emitting, nonporous, long-lasting surface materials are GREENGUARD Indoor Air Quality Certified® and also carry the GREENGUARD for Children & Schools℠ certification. The Terra Collection can contribute points toward the LEED® Materials and Resources Credit for Recycled Content, in addition to the LEED points that all Corian surfaces can help contribute

source: http://www2.dupont.com/Surfaces_Commercial/en_US/index.html

ARCHITECTURE-MATERIALS

2008-05-18T07:58:00.000+03:00

Acid-Etched Glass and Mirror

Walker Glass introduces its new collection of patterned acid-etched glass and mirror under the brand name Walker Textures™ Nuance. Using a distinctive two-tone finish, the product offering includes five different patterns. In addition, exclusive or custom designs are available to answer you project-specific requirements. The Walker Textures Nuance products are available in a wide range of thicknesses, from 3 millimeters to 19 millimeters (0.12 to 0.75 inches), as well as in a variety of tints, including blue, green, gray, bronze, black, and Starphire® ultra-clear glass by PPG. This complete program offers greater flexibility and design options. Contact Walker Glass for a sample kit.

source :http://www.walker-glass.com/patterned-acid-etched-glass.html?gad=CMz9zrwFEgjyBJi4KUPJxBiYptH5AyCgmuBN

ARCHITECTURE-MATERIALS

2008-05-18T07:55:00.000+03:00

Fabric Forms for Concrete Columns

Fast-Tube™ is a fabric form for use in pouring concrete columns. Made of strong, polyethleyne-coated fabric, these forms are 200 times lighter than corresponding cardboard tubes. The tubes can be cut to any length with a utility knife, and are easy to brace, install, pour, and strip. Available in rolls 60 or 120 feet (18 or 36 meters) long, and in diameters from 8 to 24 inches (20 to 61 centimeters). The product is weatherproof and can be easily transported and stored onsite. Can contribute to LEED points. From Fab-Form Industries Ltd.

source : http://www.fab-form.com/

ARCHITECTURE FOR HUMANITY - MYANMAR

2008-05-11T01:42:00.000+03:00

"ARCHITECTURE FOR HUMANITY" is a non profit organization that provides a range of professional services to community groups, NGO's and others seeking architecture and design solutions. In addition they provide support to designers seeking to provide pro bono services to community groups through our design fellowship program and fiscal sponsorship.

Architecture for Humanity offers volunteer opportunities and design fellowships for architects and designers. Opportunities range from short-term volunteer stints to long term paid commitments.

"Cyclone Nargis hit the heart of Myanmar on Saturday morning, May 3, 2008. In the week since, officials are now reporting that the death toll has risen over 100,000.In the coming weeks, the media will focus its attention on the loss of life, and the millions displaced. If permitted to support the relief effort, large aid agencies will be knee deep in immediate delivery of aid. But how will the country respond the need for communities to rebuild?
We are reaching out to our community to raise funds to provide design services to communities affected by the disaster. We will be reaching out to and supporting architects who are have previously worked in Myanmar. This is a small start, but could affect tens of thousands of those displaced."

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLZ visit: http://www.architectureforhumanity.org/

1st Panhellenic Conference of Structural Materials and Elements

2008-04-25T21:50:00.000+03:00

The fist panhellenic conference of structural materials and elements will take place in Athens, (Greece), in the hotel Divani Caravel, at 21 untill 23 of may 2008. The purpose of the conference is to inform about the development in the field of the stuctural materials and their way of their implementation.
For the participation to the conference is needed to fill the below application.
http://portal.tee.gr/portal/page/portal/INTER_RELATIONS/INT_REL_P/SYNEDRIA_EKDHLWSEIS/syn-domikwn-ylikwn/announcement/txt/triptixo_fin8.pdf-10.4.08.pdf

Το ΤΕΕ διοργανώνει το 1o Πανελλήνιο Συνέδριο δομικών υλικών και στοιχείων με παράλληλη έκθεση στο ξενοδοχείο Divani Caravel τον Μάιο του 2008. Στόχος του συνεδρίου είναι η ενημέρωση όλων των ενδιαφερομένων σε θέματα έρευνας και τεχνολογίας και η ανταλλαγή απόψεων με την προοπτική της περαιτέρω ανάπτυξης του κλάδου δομικών υλικών και των εφαρμογών τους.

Τα υλικά που εξετάζει το συνέδριο είναι:

Αδρανή υλικά

Τσιμέντο, κονίες - κονιάματα

Σκυρόδεμα και προϊόντα

Κεραμικά υλικά και προϊόντα

Δομικά προϊόντα φυσικών πετρωμάτων

Μέταλλα και προϊόντα

Ξύλο και προϊόντα

Ύαλος και προϊόντα

Θερμομονωτικά και ηχομονωτικά υλικά και προϊόντα

Στεγανωτικά υλικά, άσφαλτος και προϊόντα

Χρωματα, βερνίκια

Πλαστικά για δομικές χρήσεις

Πυρίμαχα- πυράντοχα υλικά και στοιχεία

Επισκευαστικά υλικά

Ρητίνες για δομικές χρήσεις

Καινοτομικά προϊόντα- νανοϋλικά

sourse : http://www.tee.gr/

Design-cabbage - Chair by Nendo

2008-04-22T23:53:00.000+03:00

Nendo designed the cabbage chair for XXIst Century Man exhibition curated by Issey Miyake.

“Miyake asked us to make furniture out of the pleated paper that is produced in mass amounts during the process of making pleated fabric, and usually abandoned as an unwanted by-product. Our solution to his challenge transformed a roll of pleated paper into a small chair that appears naturally as you peel away its outside layers, one layer at a time. Resins added during the original paper production process adds strength and the ability to remember forms, and the pleats themselves give the chair elasticity and a springy resilience, for an overall effect that looks almost rough, but gives the user a soft, comfortable seating experience. “

sourse by : http://www.nendo.jp/en/works/detail.php?y=2008&t=111

ABOUT DUBAI

2008-04-21T18:03:00.000+03:00

'dubai towers' is the centerpiece for the large 'lagoons' development. the buildings and the development were all conceived of by TVS.

'dubai grand pyramid' obviously derives its form from the egyptian pyramids, with a modern twist.

'opus' is another dubai building designed by british architect zaha hadid. the 235 million GBP development was designed for the business bay for omniyat properties.

'synergy' is another building designed by india's sanjay puri for dubai's business bay area. the 20-storybuilding was designed to appear like a stack of cubes that were fluidly merged.

dubai city is located on the united arab emeritus on the persian gulf. the current ruler is mohammed bin rashid al maktoum, who is also the prime minister and vice president of the united arab emirates. the city has a population of 1.6 million people and a 37 billion USD economy based largely on trade, manufacturing and financial services. contrary to popular belief petrol and natural gas only make up a small percentage of revenues.
the city has gained world-wide attention in the past few years because of its booming economy and ambitious architectural projects. with a focus on business and tourism, the city is ramping up construction on an unprecedented level. in fact, dubai is said to be home to 15% to 25% of the world's 125,000 construction cranes. don't think that the architectural expansion is over, because a slew of new project are on the table and in the works as we speak.

sourse by : www.archinect.com

GUJARAT INTERNATIONAL FINANCE TEC‐CITY (GIFT)

2008-04-21T16:09:00.000+03:00

The State of Gujarat has emerged as the fastest growing region in the country with an annual Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) of over 14% per annum over the past 10 years. In addition to housing one of the largest manufacturing bases in India, Gujarat also accounts for a disproportionately large share of the investor and entrepreneurial population in the country. A recently conducted talent study for the State also established that the manpower pool available in Gujarat, including non-resident Gujarati’s, is amongst the largest pools available in the country

Recognizing the potential of the State as a centre for the financial services industry, the Government of Gujarat formulated a mega project to realize this vision. Approximately 27,000 ha of land between the commercial capital of the State, Ahmedabad, and the Administrative Capital of the State, Gandhinagar, have been earmarked for the development of a Central Finance and Business District (CFBD), Institutional areas, Knowledge parks, Integrated Townships, etc. The CFBD has been named the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT)

The Project Concept

Location : The site is 12 kms from the Ahmedabad International Airport and 8 kms from Gandhinagar. The site abuts a four lane National Highway (NH8) which connects Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar on its western side. The Sabramati river demarcates the eastern boundary of the Project site

Concept : GIFT is being designed as a hub for the global finance services industry. The Project design has benefited greatly from the inputs of a large number of domestic and international experts who have had an opportunity to determine the key needs of Companies in the financial services space. More particularly, state-of-the-art connectivity, infrastructure and transportation access have been integrated into the design of the city. An attractive pricing strategy is also being developed to ensure that it is a fraction of the cost that is ordinarily incurred in other Indian and global finance cities

Proposed Implementation Framework :

The Project is being implemented through a series of entities / agencies to provide a seamless framework

•Buildings : The various buildings under the GIFT Project would be constructed through selected and experienced contractors having relevant credentials in line with the requirements. The buildings would be in the form of shell, furnished, plug & play or press & play as the case may be. Uniformity of design and aesthetics would be maintained

• Infrastructure : The Company would structure Sub-Projects for private sector participation on a stand-alone basis or on a joint venture basis. GIFTCL would aim at creating an enabling framework for implementing the individual sub-projects through a Public Private Partnership mode and with facilitation by GoG. Thus several Sub-Projects would be developed on Build Operate and Transfer (BOT) for recovery on user pay basis

•Special Purpose Vehicles At an appropriate time, the Company would set up SPV’s to domicile the several Project Components. Each SPV would be self-sufficient on a stand-alone basis. As a strategy, the Company would consider taking a stake in some of the SPV’s

•Consultants :Panel of consultants presently engaged for GIFT include ECADI/Fairwood, McKinsey & Company, Hewitt, IL&FS Ecosmart among others

ΕΚΘΕΣΗ ΣΤΟ ΜΟΥΣΕΙΟ ΜΠΕΝΑΚΗ "To σχήμα του τόπου"

2008-04-08T00:58:00.000+03:00

Παραθέτω το απόσπασμα που έχει αναρτηθεί στο link www.benaki.gr για την έκθεση με τίτλο "To σχήμα του τόπου", μια έκθεση για την παρουσία και δράση των Ελλήνων αρχιτεκτόνων τα τελευταία 40 χρόνια. Θεωρώ πως είναι ιδιαίτερα ενδιαφέρουσα ως έκθεση και θεωρείται από τις πρώτες προσπάθειες οργάνωσης και ανάδειξης μέσα από τα πλάισια μιας έκθεσης του ελληνικού αρχιτεκτονικού πλούτου.

Η έκθεση είναι αφιερωμένη στην προσφορά του ετήσιου περιοδικού «Αρχιτεκτονικά Θέματα» που κυκλοφόρησε για πρώτη φορά το 1967 και του περιοδικού «Θέματα Χώρου +Τεχνών» που ακολούθησε το 1970. Πραγματοποιείται με την ευκαιρία της αναγόρευσης του Ορέστη Δουμάνη, εκδότη και διευθυντή των δύο επιθεωρήσεων αρχιτεκτονικής, σε επίτιμο διδάκτορα του Τμήματος Αρχιτεκτόνων του Αριστοτελείου Πανεπιστημίου Θεσσαλονίκης, τιμώντας την προσφορά του στην ελληνική αρχιτεκτονική, τον Απρίλιο του 2007.Η έκθεση διατρέχει τη ζωντανή ιστορία της ελληνικής αρχιτεκτονικής του 20ου αιώνα, όπως αυτή παρουσιάζεται μέσα από τις σελίδες των δύο περιοδικών και αναδεικνύει την οπτική και την κατεύθυνσή των περιοδικών αυτών ως προς την επιλογή των αρχιτεκτονικών έργων και των θεωρητικών κειμένων που δημοσίευσαν μέχρι σήμερα με κύριο στόχο την παρουσίαση της νεοελληνικής και της διεθνούς αρχιτεκτονικής πραγματικότητας.Η πρώτη παρουσίαση της έκθεσης έγινε στο Τελλόγλειο Ίδρυμα Τεχνών Θεσσαλονίκης το 2007 και σήμερα παρουσιάζεται «διευρυμένη» και εμπλουτισμένη

Διάρκεια
19/03/200 - 11/05/2008

The shape of the landscape : 40 years of Architectonica Themata)
The exhibition is dedicated to the contributions made by the annual periodical “Architectonica Themata” (Architectural Themes), which was first issued in 1967, and the periodical “Themata Chorou + Technon” (Topics of Space and the Arts), which followed in 1970. It took place in April 2007, on the occasion of Orestis Doumanis, publisher and editor of these two architectural reviews, receiving an honorary Ph.D. from the Department of Architects at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, for his contributions to Greek architecture.The exhibition runs through the living history of 20th century Greek architecture, as this was presented through the pages of the two periodicals, and highlights the viewpoint and the direction set by these periodicals concerning the architectural projects and theoretical texts they published to this day, for the main purpose of presenting contemporary Greek and international architectural events.The first showing of the exhibition took place at the Telloglion Foundation of Art in Thessaloniki, in 2007, and is now shown with additional material that enriches the exhibition and broadens its scope.

Duration
19/03/200 - 11/05/2008

ΠΑΡΑΔΟΣΙΑΚΟΙ ΟΙΚΙΣΜΟΙ-ΜΥΣΤΡΑΣ 3

2008-04-01T23:10:00.000+03:00

ΕΠΙΚΡΑΤΕΣΤΕΡΟΙ ΤΡΟΠΟΙ ΚΑΤΑΣΚΕΥΗΣ

1. ΚΑΤΑΚΟΡΥΦΑ ΦΕΡΟΝΤΑ ΣΤΟΙΧΕΙΑ
Τον φέροντα οργανισμό αποτελούν οι πέτρινες τοιχοποιίες. Σε περίπτωση μεγάλου ανοίγματος υπάρχουν και ξύλινα υποστυλώματα για τη στήριξη του πατώματος ή της στέγης.
Η φέρουσα τοιχοποιία κατασκευάζονταν από πέτρες και συνδέονταν με κονίαμα (το λεγόμενο κουρασάνι).
Τα υποστυλώματα κατασκευάζονταν από ξύλο και συνδέονταν είτε με κατάλληλη διαμόρφωση των ξύλων είτε με μεταλλικούς συνδέσμους.
Οι φέρουσες τοιχοποιίες διατάσωνταν σε ορθογωνικά σχήματα και σπάνια σε πιο περίπλοκες διατάξεις. Το πάχος της τοιχοποιίας ποικίλει ανάλογα με το μέγεθος του κτηρίου από 50-80cm. Ενισχύονταν με ξυλοδεσιές περιμετρικά στο ύψος της ποδιάς των ανοιγμάτων και στη βάση της στέγης.

2. ΟΡΙΖΟΝΤΙΑ ΦΕΡΟΝΤΑ ΣΤΟΙΧΕΙΑ
Τα οριζόντια φέροντα στοιχεία είναι κυρίως κατασκευασμένα από ξύλο όπως τα πατώματα μεταξύ ορόφων, οι σύνδεσμοι ανά 60-80 στη τοιχοποιία, τα τζινέτια, η βάση στήριξης των στεγών και η δημοιυργία των ανοιγμάτων που θα δεχτουν κουφώματα.

3. ΕΣΩΤΕΡΙΚΑ ΔΙΑΧΩΡΙΣΤΙΚΑ
Σε περίπτωση διαχωρισμού ενός χώρου σε μικρότερους κατασκευάζονταν τοίχοι από πλέγμα καλαμιών που στηριζόταν σε ξύλινα πλαίσια και εξωτερικά προστατεύονταν με επίχρισμα.
Ονομάζεται μπαγδατί και κατασκευάζεται κυρίως σε ορόφους λόγω μικρού βάρους ή και σε ισόγεια επίπεδα λόγω οικονομίας. Σπανιότερα βρίσκονται διαχωριστικοί εσωτερικοί τοίχοι από πέτρα, και κυρίως σε κτήρια δημοσίου χαρακτήρα ή αρχοντικά.

4. ΣΤΕΓΕΣ
Οι στέγες στην πλειονότητα τους είναι τετράρριχτες και σπανιότερα δίρριχτες. Ο σκελετός τους είναι από ξύλο και χρησιμοποιούνταν είτε ζευκτά είτε με σύστημα κεκλιμένων δοκών. Στηρίζεται στην φέρουσα τοιχοποιία και σπάνια υποστηρίζεται από κάθετα ξύλινα υποστυλώματα. Η επικάλυψη της στέγης γίνεται από κεραμίδια που στηρίζονται σε καλάμια ή σανίδες και πλάκες.

5. ΑΝΟΙΓΜΑΤΑ ΚΟΥΦΩΜΑΤΑ
Τα ανοίγματα κατά κύριο λόγο έχουν μικρό μέγεθος. Για την κατασκευή των ανοιγμάτων χρησιμοποιούνταν δυο τρόποι κυρίως σε δίαφορες παραλλαγές. Είτε με τη χρήση ξύλινου ή σπανιότερα πέτρινου πρεκιού είτε με ανακουφιστικό τόξο. Τα κουφώματα των παραθύρων ξύλινα αρχικά χωρίς τζαμιλίκι αλλά μετά το 1900 έγινε η προσθήκη τζαμιών. Τα σκούρα είναι σπαστά δίφυλλα ή τετράφυλλα. Οι πόρτες ήταν κατά κύριο λόγο ξύλινεςκαρφωτές και σπανιότερα ταμπλάδες

6. ΣΚΑΛΕΣ - ΕΞΩΣΤΕΣ
Σκάλες τοποθετούνταν εξωτερικά και εσωτερικά στα κτίσματα
Η σύνδεση μεταξύ εσωτερικού χώρου και εξωτερικού, συνήθως προς την αυλή γινόταν με πέτρινη σκάλα που στηριζόταν σε διαδοχικές καμάρες. Εσωτερικά υπήρχαν ελαφριές ξύλινες σκάλες για να επικοινωνούν τα επίπεδα μεταξύ τους .
Οι εξώστες κατασκευάζονταν από ξύλο και δεν ξεπερνούσαν σε πλάτος τα 80 εκατοστά εκτός ορισμένων περιπτώσεων που συναντιόνται σε αρχοντικά στα οποία οι εξώστες στηρίζονται σε φέρουσες ξύλινες κατασκευές η σπανιότερα σε πέτρινα υποστυλώματα.

6. ΠΑΘΟΛΟΓΙΑ
Οι φθορές των κτηρίων του οικισμού είναι κυρίως λόγο καιρικών συνθηκών και έλλειψη συντήρισης. Όσο ανφορά τις τοιχοποιίες εντοπίζονται ρωγμές κοντά στα ανοίγματα ή κοντά στις των κάθετων τοίχων, κυρίως λόγο σεισμών. Ακόμα παρατηρούνται μεταμόρφωση των μεταλλικών συνδέσμων και πολλές φορές καταστροφή τους.
Η έλλειψη συντήρησης των στεγών επηρεάζει σημαντικά τη στατική τους ικανότητα. Λόγω των καιρικών συνθηκών (υγρασία, βροχές, χιόνι) τα φέροντα στοιχεία σαπίζουν και οι στέγες υποχωρούν. Η υγρασία επίσης επηρεάζει και άλλα μέρη του κτηρίου όπως τα κουφώματα που σταδιακά παραμορφώνονται και χάνουν τη στεγανότητα τους και οι ξυλοδεσιές.

ΠΑΡΑΔΟΣΙΑΚΟΙ ΟΙΚΙΣΜΟΙ-ΜΥΣΤΡΑΣ 2

2008-04-01T22:55:00.001+03:00

Ο οικισμός του Μυστρά, με το πέρασμα των χρόνων μετατράπηκε από αμιγής αγροτικός σε μεικτός λόγω της προσέλευσης τουριστών που επισκέπτονται το φράγκικο κάστρο του Μοριά. Ως συνέπεια του φαινομένου του τουρισμού είναι η μερική αλλοίωση του χαρακτήρα του οικισμού με προσθήκες και επεμβάσεις σε παλιά κτήρια. Παρόλα αυτά, όπως κανείς μπορεί να διαπιστώσει πως τα κύρια στοιχεία που συνθέτουν και χαρακτηρίζουν τον οικισμό έχουν παραμείνει ανέπαφα. Βασικό στοιχείο η κατασκευή της τοιχοποιίας από πέτρα κατατάσσει τον οικισμό σε ορεινούς. Η κλίση του εδάφους όπως επίσης και το «τείχος» που δημιουργείται από τον Ταΰγετο συντέλεσε στον γενικό προσανατολισμό προς νοτιοανατολικά και αμφιθεατρικά. Τα μεγέθη των κτηρίων είναι παρόμοια μεταξύ τους και δημιουργούν σε σχέση με τις τετράρριχτες στέγες ένα ενιαίο σύνολο με μόνες εξάρσεις τους όγκους των αρχοντικών και των εκκλησιών. Η χρήση ιδίων υλικών όπως πέτρα, ξύλο και κεραμικά λοιπά στοιχεία, όπως και κατασκευαστικών λεπτομερειών λειτουργεί θετικά στην εντύπωση ομοιογένειας του συνόλου, εκτός από το κέντρο του οικισμού που ως χώρος εμπορικών συναλλαγών έχει υποστεί αλλοιώσεις λόγω κατασκευών και υλικών νέων.Ενώ ο οικισμός είναι ορεινός, δεν είναι κτισμένος ως συμπαγής μάζα αλλά απλώνεται γραμμικά κατά μήκος του κεντρικού δρόμου που ενώνει το κάστρο με την Σπάρτη και το γεγονός ότι κάθε κτίσμα έχει αυλή του δίνει την εντύπωση ότι τείνει να «απλωθεί» προς τα ανατολικά. Παλαιότερα ο οικισμός ήταν κτισμένος σε μεγαλύτερο υψόμετρο αλλά από τα μέσα του 19ου αιώνα ο αμυντικός χαρακτήρας του οικισμού μετατράπηκε σταδιακά σε αγροτικό, και τα νέα κτήρια χτίστηκαν πιο κοντά στην πεδιάδα της Σπάρτης.

ΠΑΡΑΔΟΣΙΑΚΟΙ ΟΙΚΙΣΜΟΙ-ΜΥΣΤΡΑΣ 1

2008-04-01T22:46:00.000+03:00

Ο Μυστράς υπήρξε περίφημο πολιτικό και πνευματικό κέντρο της ύστερης Βυζαντινής περιόδου, το οποίο αναπτύχθηκε μετά την Δ΄ Σταυροφορία (1204) και την μετάθεση του κέντρου των ενδιαφερομένων της αυτοκρατορίας από τις ανατολικές στις δυτικές επαρχίες της. Όπως είναι γνωστό, το 1204 οι Φράγκοι ιππότες εγκαταστάθηκαν στην Πελοπόννησο.Το 1249 ο Βιλλαρδουίνος περιέβαλε με ισχυρό τείχος την κορυφή του βουνού, χτίζοντας έτσι το κάστρο της πόλης που ονομάστηκε Μυστράς ή Μυζηθράς. Η ονομασία του σχετίζεται ετυμολογικά με τη μυζήθρα από το σχήμα του βουνού.Το 1259, στη μάχη της Πελαγονίας, ο αυτοκράτορας του Βυζαντίου Μιχαήλ Η΄ ο Παλαιολόγος συνέλαβε τον Βιλλαρδουίνο, ο οποίος του παραχώρησε τα κάστρα της Πελοποννήσου.Πρώτος ο Μανουήλ Καντακουζηνός (1348 - 1380), έβαλε τα θεμέλια του νέου ελληνικού κράτους, οργάνωσε την περιοχή, δέχθηκε νέους κατοίκους, στερέωσε την ειρήνη και την ευημερία και έχτισε αρχοντικά και ναούς. Με τον Θεόδωρο Α΄ Παλαιολόγο (1384 - 1407) η εξουσία πέρασε στους Παλαιολόγους, οι οποίοι επέκτειναν τα όρια του δεσποτάτου καταλαμβάνοντας όλη την Πελοπόννησο. Με το διάδοχό του Θεόδωρο Β΄(1407 - 1443), που ήταν δευτερότοκος γιός του αυτοκράτορα Μανουήλ Β΄, εγκαινιάστηκε μια νέα περίοδος Το 1460 ο Δημήτριος Παλαιολόγος παραδίδει τον Μυστρά στους Τούρκους.Στην τουρκοκρατία ο Μυστράς γίνεται έδρα του Τούρκου διοικητή, χάνει την ακμή του και μένουν μαζί με τη Θεσσαλονίκη, τα δύο μεγαλύτερα κέντρα πολιτισμού. Το 1687 καταλαμβάνουν το Μυστρά οι Βενετοί του Μοροζίνι και τον κρατούν 28 χρόνια, ως το 1715, που τον ξαναπαίρνουν οι Τούρκοι. Με την ελληνική επανάσταση ελευθερώνεται και πάλι, αλλά στα 1825 καίγεται από τους Αιγύπτιους του Ιμπραήμ. Η ίδρυση της νέας Σπάρτης στον κάμπο από τον Όθωνα (1831), σημείωσε το οριστικό τέλος της χώρας του Μυστρά. Οι γνωστές οικογένειες πήγαν στη καινούργια πρωτεύουσα και οι περισσότεροι από τους άλλους κατέβηκαν στο Νέο Μυστρά που κτίστηκε στην πεδιάδα.

ACROPOLIS

2008-03-30T14:59:00.001+03:00

CASTLES - Beautiful Architecture - Around the world

2008-03-30T13:46:00.001+03:00

Beautiful Architecture Around the World - Castles