During the 20th century,
many architects were breaking away from traditional designs and construction
methods. The most radical design element was the open plan, which is still a major theme in today's buildings. Two architects that were the first to establish this idea in their design
principles were Le Corbusier and Mies Van der Rohe. Although they both
practiced this idea around the same time, their different
styles as an architect formulated two different approaches.
Le Corbusier (1887-1967), a French
architect, designed with rationality and functionality. He sought out to
liberate the individual and therefore, exercised the Modular system to utilize
the human dimensions. Pairing the golden ratio to the Modular, his system
focused on scale of architectural proportion. Inspired by many thinkers and
architects, he saw that the world needed free plans and open forms, influencing
him to formulate a new language of form. Utilizing the Domino Skeleton System,
Le Corbusier created the Maison Domino (1914) as a serially reproducible unit.
Incorporating pilotis as the structural system, introduced the idea of a free
plan. Because non-load-bearing walls could be freely arranged as spatial
dividers, more spatial designs were possible. This idea was revolutionary and
became the foundation of Le Corbusier’s 5 points of architecture: 1) Columns.
2) Free plan. 3) Free facade. 4). Ribbon window. 5) Roof garden.
1.
Columns (pilotis)
Elevating the mass
off the ground
2.
Free plan (plan libre)
Achieved through the separation of the load-bearing columns from the
walls subdividing the
space
3.
The free façade (façade libre)
The corollary of the free plan in the vertical plane
4.
Ribbon wind (fenetre de longerue)
The long horizontal sliding window
5.
Roof garden (toit-jardin)
Restoring supposedly, the area of ground covered by the house
 |
| Masion Domino (1914) |
By eliminating the load-bearing
walls and replacing them with columns, Le Corbusier opened up the interior and
exterior, allowing new possibilities to be explored.
Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe
(1886-1969), a German architect, was a constructivist abstraction designer, mainly focusing
on planes and lines. Influenced by the Berlin Avant-garde, he had multiple
ideas of architecture as well:
1.
The
enclosure of function in a generalized cubic container not
committed to any
particular set of concrete functions (seen to be related to neoclassicism).
2.
The
articulation of the buildings in response to the fluidity of life.
3.
Dematerialization
of architectural elements.
4.
Plastic
sensibility in window/brick compositions
5.
Elementalist
design of the plan (similar to Destjil and Theo Van Doesburg)
6.
The
Center is abolished
7.
The
room as a plan organizer is dissolved.
8.
Plans
are not organized by the taxonomy of functions but represent an instance of
MVDR’s many possible compositions.
9.
Interplay
between column and wall is a major theme.
 |
| Barcelona Pavillion (1929) |
MVDR’s plans for the Barcelona
Pavillion reveal that the column and walls establish an open plan. The
center is abolished, space is defined, and independent walls, rather than
enclosed rooms, organize the plan. His major intention was to dissociate the
wall from its traditional dimensions, until the wall just signified a wall; not
touching the roof or other walls, but simply standing as a visual divider to
define a space. Similar to Le Corbusier, the wall was no longer needed as a
structural element. Columns took their place, as the walls became more of a
visual aspect. His plans were quite simple, designing the structure around the
notion of “less is more”. With the dialogue between the columns and walls,
MVDR’s open plan invited the “fluidity of life” into his buildings.
Sources:
Hartoonian,
G. (1984). Journal of Architectural Education (1984-) Vol. 42, No. 2: MVDR The Genealogy of Column and Wall.
43-50. Blackwell Publishing. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1425090 .
Herz-Fischler,
R. (1927). Le Corbusier’s “Regulating
Lines” for the Villa at Garches (1927) and other Early Architectural Works.
Ottawa: Carleton University.
Middleton, D.
(N.A). Le Corbusier. [PowerPoint
slides]. Retrieved from Ball State University Blackboard website: https://blackboard.bsu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_106280_1%26url%3D
Middleton, D.
(N.A). Mies Van der Rohe. [PowerPoint
slides]. Retrieved from Ball State University Blackboard website: https://blackboard.bsu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_106280_1%26url%3D
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