Resolution and Tension

Mies van der Rohe and the Myriad Dualities of Architecture by Andrew Ryan Gleeson Resolution and Tension

Mies van der Rohe and the Myriad Dualities of Architecture by Andrew Ryan Gleeson

Harvard GSD M. Arch. II Thesis Spring 2013 Advisor: Jorge Silvetti Published by LULU

Cover Image is a sketch by Mies van der Rohe of an auditorium concept.

Font: Windsor (Lt and Regular) (Popularized by Woody Allen) ~

The symbol above, called a tilde, will be used at various times in the text to connotate complementary and contradictory dualistic relationships. I learned of this usage in an essay on neuro-dualities by J.A. Scott Kelso titled Metastable Mind in the newly published book, Cognitive Architec- ture (editors; Hauptman, Deborah, and Neidich, Warren). Page. 119.

2 This book is dedicated to J.B. and my Mother.

Acknowledgements:

The biggest thanks goes to the pa- tient few who helped edit this thesis. They improved it greatly beyond my own abilities: John Murdock, Jorge Silvetti, Blair Kamin, and K. Michael Hays.

I also want to thank the kind en- couragement of: Franz Schulze, Fritz Neumeyer, Claire Zimmerman, Thomas Leslie, Wes Jones, Krzysztof Wodiczko, my family and my M. Arch II. class (I couldn’t have asked for a better group of friends).

Also in memory of my Grandmother and Detlef Mertins.

3 Table of Contents

Part I: Resolution and Tension------7

Introduction------9

The Struggle of the Architect------9

Apollonian and Dionysian Aesthetcis------10

Why Study Mies? ------12

1. Mies van der Rohe and the Material Spirit------15

2. Program and Structure------31

3.Tradition and Innovation------41

4. Protection and Connection------57

5. Grounding and Flotation------71

6. Glass: Clarity and Obscurity------79

7. Freedom and Constraint------89

Conclusion to Part I------99

4 Table of Contents

Part II: Mies After Mies ------103

Introduction------105

1. Less is a Bore: The Postmodern Critique------106

a. Robert Venturi------107

b. Charles Jencks------123

c. Stanley Tigerman------125

2. More is More: Second Wave Postmodernism------129

a. Rem Koolhaas------129

b. Peter Eisenman------132

c. Frank Gehry------134

3. Yes is More: Mies in the Contemporary Scene------137

Conclusion to Part II------139

Bibliographical Notes to Part II------141

Bibliography------143

Part I: Resolution and Tension

Introduction 7 8 Introduction Introduction ~ The architect struggles against both Architecture is neither a purely ra- nature (which is a conceptual chaotic tional nor purely spiritual art. It is force that negates will) and internally a complex mix, whose manifestation competing Appolonian and Dionysian -- by degrees-- is expressed either in desires. They are conflicted on how resolution or tension. Balance occurs to express the ideal, and are also when dualing contradictory forces are compromised by the ability of their resolved. Tension results from irreso- hand to express the idea inside their lution in disproportion. Intentional mind. Once brought out into the open exploitation of these fundamental du- through a schematized drawing -- a alities --to achieve either balance or sum total of all internal conflicts -- imbalance -- ultimately deconceals an the idea passes through the screen inherent power within architecture. of extrinsic pressures that mold and shape it further. The laws of science, In architecture there are myriad dual- gravity and technology limits expres- ities with differing hierarchies. Some sion. Clients, who often reify the sta- are foundational, existing at the heart tus quo, chime in further with sub- of architectural production. Certain jective opinions. Material availability dualities are nested within others, and labor skill determine its physical and some cannot be conceptualized outcome. Budget limits all of these separately from other complimentary things. dualities. Duality is, therefore, not a mode of reduction; it is a method of The architect expresses both these establishing and trying to address the internal and external struggles in intricate web of forces in architecture their buildings. Architecture is thus that negate each other through con- a manifestation of opposing extrinsic tradictory agendas. and intrinsic tensions on many levels (fig. 1). The Struggle of the Architect ~ The architectural object is the resul- The architect is in a tug of war battle tant of these pressures, which com- between spiritual and pragmatic con- promise its ideal form. The ideal cerns. They have not resolved them- cannot be created in a real world selves to these competing desires. just as certain experiments in phys- He/she chose this profession because ics cannot be performed outside of a engineering is too constrictive and fictional vacuum. To take this meta- fine art is too liberating. An architect phor further, the extrinsic and intrin- thus needs discipline and freedom to sic pressures are the friction that acts perform. This battle expresses itself upon the ideal and limits its total free in myriad ways throughout history in expression. Architecture is thus an the architecture one creates. expression of compromise and frus- tration. Throughout history, our will

Introduction 9 fig.1 has pushed against the limited possi- Apollonian and Dionysian bilities of our real world. An architect Aesthetics with knowledge of this duality, within and without, is better equipped to Architecture is the synthesis between cope with and anticipate the effects the real and the spiritual. The real is of reality. They can manipulate the the body of elements that influence compromises to achieve reconcilia- a building towards its practical function, or keep the duality unresolved tion; it is the rationalist necessity or and exploit inherent tensions. the objective aims of built works. The spiritual is that in a building which is unrelated to, and unsupported by, necessity. The spiritual is borne of a 10 Introduction desire to create something that tran- adulterated expression removed from scends the laws of practical reality. It the demands of corporeal constraints is the will to create beauty; to satisfy a (structure, program, gravity, client, deep unknowable longing. In theory, budget). the real is objective and the subjective is spiritual, however, the objective is Nietzsche writes that the Apollonian continuously tempered by the bias seeks out truth and regards its ex- of the individual. Conversely, when pression as symbolic of that truth. It subjectivity resonates with an almost seeks to eliminate contradiction and universal approval, or is validated in is thus inflexible: it is catholic. The time with age value, the notion of to- Apollonian disavows its temporary tal subjectivity can blur. The purely nature. Instead it often whole-heart- pragmatic is merely shelter; the pure- edly mistakes itself for an expression ly aesthetic is merely sculpture. of timelessness. Its aims are thus purely spiritual, even if they poetical- The aesthetic, spiritual element in ar- ly echo the diagram of the pragmatic chitecture can be self-reflexive, taking work (late Mies van der Rohe). cues from methods previously thought of as objective, rational and appropri- The Dionysian is aware of the subjec- ate. On the other hand, aesthetics tive nature of aesthetic expression. can run counter to the practicalities It is open to interpretation, and is of built work. These a-tectonic ges- aware that its perception will change tures seek to divorce the pragmatic with time. It acknowledges time and aims of a built work from its aes- may choose to celebrate temporality thetic aims. Objectivist aesthetics and the torrid nature of perception. are found in the expressive rational- Building materials are thus made ism of Louis Sullivan’s skyscrapers or with weathering in mind. The build- the pure structural diagram of Crown ing is not suspended in an ideal state: Hall by Mies van der Rohe, while Er- instead it has an intended lifespan. ich Mendelsohn’s Einstein tower or This very duality between the Apol- Frank Gehry’s Bilbao Museum repre- lonian and the Dionysian is denied sent blatantly subjective aims. by the former and embraced by the latter. With expressive rationalism, aesthetics take on an Apollonian desire to- Regardless of whether aesthetics are wards discipline and restraint. The Apollonian or Dionysian, they are al- work seeks a rhythm in accordance ways in contrast to the true demands with its own demands; it rests within of the built work. Pragmatic reality its own framed completion. is a constant opposing force against the creative will to create something Expressionist architecture respects out of the raw necessities of shelter. the Dionysian. It desires a playful break from discipline: freedom of un-

Introduction 11 Why Study Mies? Mies’s attempt at an objective archi- A superficial criticism of Modern- tecture went hand in hand with an ism was that it tried to create truth attempt at timelessness. He believed through positivist objective affirma- the only way to express the timeless tions. Eisenman calls truth through was to skirt the fleeting edge of tech- objective scientific method a faith- nological innovation. In other words, based myth bearing little difference the only way one can express the in- to religion.1 Where, then, can archi- finite is through the finite (Simmel’s tecture gain its authority? It requires reading of Nietzsche)2. This is the an acknowledgement of a necessary definition of the zeitgeist, which he compromise between spiritual and ra- tirelessly tried to advance throughout tional concerns. The architect must his career. A study of Mies’s work get their authority from the creative from the beginning to the end reveals ideal will, as well as through an hon- the operations of myriad dualities. est, albeit limited, attempt at objec- These are not clumsy contradictions tive problem solving. This again, is like critics of his work might propose; the dual nature of the architect, and they are a conscious acknowledge- I will argue that the most important ment of an inherent tension between architects of the twentieth century the spiritual and the real. operated simultaneously between this pragmatic and spiritual divide, and did This first part of this thesis will ana- so effectively by knowingly attempt- lyze six fundamental dualities (and ing to resolve or exploit the inherent one important nested duality) pres- contradictions of architecture. ent in all architecture and specifically addressed in the work of Mies van Mies van der Rohe is the most impor- der Rohe. The second part will ana- tant architect for the study of duality lyze the transformations of Mies and because he most closely skirted the these dualities after his death. opposing lines between the rational and spiritual. The world we live in is a grey between these dualities, but distillation allows one to see more clearly the black and the white forces at work in the complexity of existence. Mies thus operated within the most supreme of contradictions: in order to express the purely spiritual, he strove to arrive as close as possible to corporeal “truth.” Distillation allowed Mies to create an architecture of pure logic, which ironically begat pure ephemeral spirit.

12 Introduction Bibliographical Notes:

1. Functionalism turned out to be yet another stylistic conclusion, this one based on a scientific and technical positivism.

Eisenman, Peter. from his essay The End of the Classical : The End of the Beginning, the End of the End. in Architecture Theory Since 1968. page 525

2. Through the thought of recurrence Nietzsche has brought together in to a strange union two fundamental and opposed themes of the soul: the need for the finite, for concrete limits, for definite forms in everything given, and the need to lose oneself in the limitless.

Simmel, Georg. from Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. page 175

Introduction 13

1. Mies van der Rohe and the Material Spirit

...art is supposed to be nothing but form and idea, but its vision is only possible under the conditions of materiality. Georg Simmel 1

A great building, in my opinion, must begin with the unmeasurable, must go through measurable means when it is being designed and in the end must be unmeasurable. Louis Kahn. 2

Only where the building art leans on the material forces of a period can it bring about the spatial execution of its spiritual decisions. Mies van der Rohe. 3

MvdR and the Material Spirit 15 16 MvdR and the Material Spirit Prologue reveals itself through the technology and ways of thinking as situated in a Few people today regard Mies van der time and place: a landscape painting Rohe as a pure rationalist. Simplistic in the Middle Ages cannot utilize the critiques of his work painted him as a yet undiscovered tool of perspective. builder of clinical spaces devoid of hu- For similar reasons, the medieval man spirit, every decision apparently painting cannot be rendered on a dictated by positivist German logic. computer nor convey industrial alien- On the surface his writings and works ation; limitations of expression situ- apparently confirm this, but a closer ate it in space and time. examination shows his interest in rational building was merely a method Corporeal representation is inad- for revealing an elusive conception of equate in displaying the totality of a spiritual truth. spiritual idea, regardless of philosophy or technology.5 The visible is a In order to discuss Mies van der Rohe mere shadow of the idea, because and his relationship with a material one work of art is not a totality, but and spiritual duality, it is necessary a symbol.6 The archetypal (or typo- to begin with a broader philosophical logical) reference is a method artists foundation. First, a brief analysis of use to breach this constraint. How- Hegel’s aesthetic theory will reveal ever, any system of symbols is still a a central dilemma in the arts. Sec- particular substitution for a universal ond, a look at the process of art, its notion. For example, a Roman bust conception from idea to manifesta- can only capture the qualities of its tion, will demonstrate the difficulty subject through the medium of ex- of making ideas realizable. Finally, pression (stone), the skill of the artist architecture, as it is articulated from and the limitations of its episteme. the other arts, will demonstrate its A bust is never meant to be a one- abundance of real world constraints. to-one representation of the person These broader frameworks can then portrayed. It is understood symboli- apply to the specific typological prob- cally. As Heidegger puts it: “The Idea lem of the high-rise as tackled by ‘house’ displays what anything is that Mies over the last fifty years of his is fashioned as a house. Particular, career. real, and possible houses, in contrast, are changing and transitory deriva- tives of the Idea and thus belong to Material and Spiritual Philoso- what does not endure.”7 The artwork phy is thus an incomplete realization (fig. 2). Art is the material manifestation of a spiritual conception.4 Reality is the The Process of Art filtering screen that limits the expression of invisible ideas. Filtered spirit Art is limited in the transition from

MvdR and the Material Spirit 17 SPIRITUAL MATERIAL

INTERNAL SCREEN EXTERNAL IDEA FILTER REAL IDEAL COMPROMISE ALLEGORY/SYMBOL PURE VACUUM FRICTION THING (HEIDEGGER) COGNITIVE ABILITY ARTISTIC ABILITY CRAFT-ABILITY

THE MIND THE DRAWING THE BUILDING fig.2 the idea to the artwork. Ideas and their clarity are constrained by the artist’s cognition. This painfully ob- vious statement is necessary in noting that cognitive ability pre-screens an idea before it enters into representation. The representation process is furiously subjective: the artist’s tools, health, hand-eye coordination, workspace, and funds all limit a work. Any innate social, political, or economic conditions further thicken the fog. Thus, internal and external factors transform any objective aim of the artwork. This puts the above diagram into question: at what point before it is externalized is the idea *A lack of balance between these two compromised? creates mal-formed material expressions. However (as post-modernity has taught According to Hegel, art is a duality8 us), incongruity between idea and expres- whose reconciliation between the op- sion can also teach lessons about harmony, posing conditions of the spiritual and such as in Peter Eisenman’s manipulation of the grid in his experimental houses. material creates truth:* 18 MvdR and the Material Spirit ...what constitutes truth is merely the conform their ideas within the limita- resolution of this antithesis, and that tions of the world. The idea, for its not in the sense that the conflict and inherent success, must be consciously its aspects in any way are not, but in tempered by the real. Poor execution the sense that they are, in reconcili- (if the project is intended to go be- ation.9 yond the drawing) results from not accommodating the demands of real- The Process of Architecture ity into the original idea. The more the disconnection from idea to real- A building is unique among all art- ity, the more compromises accrue. Of works because it must accommodate course there are many unpredictable dwelling. Architecture must defeat and uncontrollable factors in design. gravity, maintain optimum tempera- It is impossible to anticipate all con- ture, prevent fire, and please the cli- tingencies in the realization of built ent. Constraints, therefore, define work. An architect’s accumulated the built work. experience of limitations, and their ability to manipulate those limita- Compared to painting, architecture tions to bend to their will, allows for encounters more problems on its fewer compromises. voyage from idea to reality. The first filter of reality lies in the architect’s Ironically, the more an architect ability to represent the idea as it knows about the limitations of the travels from sketch to plan to model. real, the more the spiritual idea is Representations are a reality, but they allowed freedom. Expertise in ma- remain symbols for something not yet terials, methods, representation, and built. When the building is realized, consultant coordination, allows the based upon the drawings of the archi- architect a clearer field to imagine the tect, the project is yet again filtered possibilities of the spiritual realm. through a different set of demands. The idea is therefore compromised The Development of Mies van by both the ability of the architect to der Rohe represent and implement his building. In fine art this third step exists Through his mastery of the built on a much smaller scale and is limit- world, and his ability to think through ed, because the representation is the fundamental ideas of spirit, Mies van end result. That is why architecture, der Rohe was particularly adept at more than any other art, contains its creating architecture with a minimum identity through compromise, and the of compromise. He achieved recon- skill of the architect is determined by ciliation between the material and their skills of reconciliation. spiritual. In doing so, Mies arrived at Hegel’s ideal of truth in art. In this regard, the architect’s skills are determined by their ability to

MvdR and the Material Spirit 19 carried with him throughout his career (fig 3). Craft and drawing helped him make buildings, but they did not tell him how to think buildings. His initial flirtation with philosophy occurred by accident with the discovery of a philosophical journal in his desk drawer at an architectural office in Aachen.13 Beginning in 1912 Mies earnestly fig.3 began his quest to uncover a deep His mythologized material sensitivity architectural motive that would in- stemmed from working at his father’s form his work.14 This began after the stone carving business as a teenag- failed project for Villa Kroller Muller, er.10 Attending trade school further as well as the influence of mentors instilled the primacy of first-hand such as Peter Behrens, Hendrik Ber- craftsmanship in the young Mies.11 His lage and Alois Riehl. During a near sense of integrity for both the materi- decade-long building slump brought als and the craft required for assem- on by World War One, he slowly and blage directly addressed the real-life earnestly scoured the work of many methods of making architecture. architects and philosophers ranging from St. Thomas Aquinas to Friedrich This knowledge of the material world Nietzsche. By the early 1920s he had was conveyed by his masterful abil- fully clarified his architectural mis- ity to draw. Drawing was important sion: to create innovative modern ar- during his early years at the techni- chitecture in contrast to his previous cal school, but it was perfected while Schinkel inspired Neo-Classicism. working as a draftsman for a stucco factory starting at age sixteen: Mies’s mastery of craftsmanship, draftsmanship, and philosophy laid a If I thought I knew how to draw be- foundation for practicing architecture fore, I really learned now. We had that reconciled the inherent conflicts huge drawing boards that went from between the idea and the material. floor to ceiling and stood vertically against the wall. You couldn’t lean An investigation of his skyscraper on or against them; you had to stand typology reveals this slow working squarely in front of them and draw through of a problem. From Mies’s not just by turning your hand but by first attempt in 1922 to his last built swinging your whole arm. 12 towers in America, a gradual refinement is evident. The idea fundamen- The act of drawing was literally stren- tally drives the process, but ideas uous work, and it reified the material can never fully anticipate the final reality required of building, which he outcome of a building. Therefore,

20 MvdR and the Material Spirit stead of their irrelevant ornamental embellishments, Mies chose to use decoration to express his buildings structure. This is how Mies clarified the diagram of stacked towers. The path to this “honest” expression was not fully formulated from the outset. It took many years in the delimiting real world to refine and reconcile his buildings with his spiritual ideas.

His first attempt is the Glass Sky- scraper of 1922 (fig. 4). This project never went beyond representation in drawing and model form. Therefore, it remained unresolved, and, if built, would have likely required changes on its journey to material translation. For example, Mies based the structural system on cantilevered concrete pads not yet developed 15 (similar to the later column system of Wright’s Johnson Wax Building). At the time fig.4 it is unknown how effective this system would have worked in a multi- models and built works also become storied building. Similarly, the glass generators of ideas, because they facade, rendered as strips affixed to bring to the fore problems that were the model, seems fantastical. not apparent during the conceptual process. Mies did not have all the an- Despite the purely speculative nature swers right away, but he did have the of the project, the model is still im- perseverance and patience to work portant in showing Mies’s methodolo- through problems until solved. gy of capturing architectural essence. Through transparency, dematerializa- Mies and the Skyscraper tion and de-formation (found in the amoebous shape of the project’s foot- By the 1920s skyscrapers were ubiq- print), Mies defined a fundamentally uitous in many American cities. Mies challenging new avenue of architec- lamented their dishonest conceal- tural expression. His radical rendering of the steel skeleton structure ing contrasted with the overtly real with decorative motifs and tradi- shapes of the adjacent small houses; tional stone cladding, as practiced the skyscraper transcends a dirty, by Beaux Arts-trained architects. In- solid, and grounded city. The tower

MvdR and the Material Spirit 21 fig.5 fig.6 exists halfway between spirit and cor- poreality. Mies’s primary method for expressing spirit was literally to imbue the building with spiritual qualities by using glass to effect a distilled ethereality.

On the quest towards reconciling form with idea, Mies’s first built skyscraper, the Promontory Apartment Building in Chicago of 1947, reveals some of the problems architects face when attempting to stay true to their original conception (fig.5). From the outset Promontory was beset by compromises. According to Phylis Lambert, the building derived from a concrete skyscraper studio project by Joseph Fujikawa (fig.6) under the guidance of Mies.16 The project consists of a glass tower with exterior 22 MvdR and the Material Spirit fig.7 concrete columns, which step back and glass infill of the built concrete as the height increases. The trans- facade18(fig.7). Amazingly, this ren- lation from this pure diagram into dering is of a project idealized ex the Promontory shows that the built post facto from its actual built condi- work was watered down. Due to code tion. (It is reminiscent of Palladio’s requirements, the concrete frame on purified drawings of his compromised the terminating sidewalls of the high villas.) With this new drawing, Mies rise was infilled with masonry. On the sought to reveal the spirit of the high front facade, similarly cheap brick in- rise through a clear expression of its fill and conventional sized windows system of construction. replaced desired floor to ceiling glass walls. Irregular lot size required The idealized rendering of Promon- projecting wings on the backside to tory directly resulted in his break- increase usable space and natural through at the Lake Shore Drive light.17 The overall effect is clumsy apartments of 1948-49. Here the and has little of the finesse his later project was less hampered by com- skyscrapers achieved. promise. The building became a diagrammatic representation of its Regardless of compromises, the method of construction. Steel mul- building manages to effectively ar- lions on the outside directly echoed ticulate structure from infill, creating the steel skeleton construction. Floor a diagram of construction technique. to ceiling glass prevented any inter- This honesty, albeit unpoetic, was in ruption in the clear diagram of the contrast to the arbitrary stylizations construction frame. Paradoxically, of many contemporaneous skyscrap- the effect is expressionist and ratio- ers. Whether Classicist or Art Deco, nalist. In other words, a clarified, skyscrapers from the same era tended ‘honest,’ diagram was achieved by to embellish an aesthetic thrust un- using the I-Beam (the building block concerned with showing the skeletal for construction) decoratively. Lake method of construction. Shore Drive effectively molted the concealing decorative facades that With the Promontory Apartment plagued skyscrapers from their begin- Building, the spiritual idea of a pure ning. The decorative use of expres- skyscraper and its material mani- sive structure in the steel mullions festation did not achieve reconcilia- allowed reconciliation between aes- tion, and therefore did not ring true. thetic and structural figuration. This Compromises that occurred at the was not the objective or goal of, for Promontory project inspired Mies to example, Art Deco. The ornament in further uncover a truer spirit of the Art Deco expresses the phenomenol- skyscraper. During the building’s ogy of verticality for purely aesthetic construction Mies had his draftsman affect, thus obfuscating the method render a drawing of the building with of construction. steel mullions instead of the brick

MvdR and the Material Spirit 23 The rest of his career in high-rise design was a refinement on the discover- ies at Lake Shore Drive Apartments. The main problem at Lake Shore was the presence of the column directly on the facade (fig.8). This required every fourth window to read slightly smaller to accommodate for the added width of the column. The solution to this, as demonstrated in later projects such as the Seagram Building, the Chicago Federal Center, and the IBM building, was a slight extrusion of the facade from the column bays (as originally proposed by Le Corbusier’s Dom-ino frame but perfected by Mies in earlier projects like the Tugendhat House). This allowed complete uniformity of mullion spacing and a reading of the structure as articulated from the non- supportive facade skin. A clear idea fig.8 is thus realized into a clear building. fig.9 The inevitable friction that occurs on the journey from the mind to the real is minimized.

Ironically, his most famously spiritual expression of “skyscraper”, The Seagram Building (fig.9), is realized in the most sumptuous materiality. Bronze cladding, travertine floors and walls, and amber tinted glass render the skyscraper sensual. Mies’s mastery and respect for materiality allowed him the sensitivity to imbue luxurious materials with an other- worldly, spiritual, quality. As discussed earlier, one way a building can appear spiritual is through ethereal distillation. This dematerialization contrasts with the heavy corporeal essence of the surrounding stone buildings. The edification, through expen-

24 MvdR and the Material Spirit sive material rendering of “common” industrial age components suggests a deconcealing of technological essence, which frames the circumstanc- es of built works in the twentieth century.19 Materials rendered in careful proportion, arranged in a clear structural diagram, express the ideal spirit of skyscraper in physical form. Therefore, the building has one foot in reality and one foot in the spiritual realm. It is a specific representing a universal, and it is a reconciliation of fig.11 objective and subjective aims in architecture.

Louis Kahn complained that Mies was not telling the whole truth (and therefore not revealing essence) by concealing shear bracing in the Sea- gram Building. Kahn writes:

Take the beautiful tower made of bronze that was erected in New York. It is a bronze lady, incomparable in beauty, but you know she has corsets for fifteen stories because the wind bracing is not seen. 20

But this is not full concealment; it is expressive rationalism. Mies was a great editor, and he was able to dis- cern which “honest” aspects of the project actually diverted attention away from a distilled aesthetic diagram. In the same way Picasso uses the phrase, Mies “lies to tell the truth” because the poetry of a building that attempts to reveal an epoch must dis- till out certain “honest” components that confuse the larger idea* (fig. *To illustrate this concept of expressive 10). In the same statement, Kahn rationalism, Figure 10 shows how the 50X50 house would have looked had it also declares the building should been truly rationlized. MvdR and the Material Spirit 25 fig.10-1: 50X50 House by Mies Van Der Rohe. 1950-51 (Project model photo collage.)

fig.10-2:The addition of edge columns give further support to the roof and facade. They also define and confine the rectangular volume.

26 MvdR and the Material Spirit fig.10-3: The addition of shear truss members further supports the roof and columns. They also obscure the view and introduce the diagonal, which does violence to the atmosphere of the space.

fig.10-4: The final step is the addition of a hipped rood (actually taken from Frank Lloyd Wright’s Winslow House) to protect from rainwater. The house is now a silly parody of itself, but it is also hyper rationalized. One could go further and add sunshades, or plaster the walls and insert regualr double hung windows.

MvdR and the Material Spirit 27 have thicker columns at the bottom. Drive-In Restaurant to his Conven- Mies, of course, began this way with tion Center project), but the high- the stepped concrete columns in the rise shows most lucidly a focused Promontory Apartment Building, but path. This clear path took decades of this detail was simplified in his later careful thought and implementation. towers. Through this slow revealing, a refined skyscraper results, and conflicts be- It is worth noting that model itera- tween its realization and idealization tions were one of the most important are minimized. In this age obsessed steps on Mies’s journey from idea to with constant innovation and fresh built form. Mies used the model in all fashionable product, it is worthwhile of his later skyscrapers to refine his to reconsider the importance of me- ideas. Models were placed within a thodical refinement. larger context to show relationships between building and their surround- The essential, in all the arts, recon- ings. He would spend hours analyz- ciles the conflict between the mate- ing proportions and contextual rela- rial and spiritual with very little lost tionships (fig.11). The model would in translation. Mies van der Rohe was teach him things that wouldn’t have a master architect because he had the occurred to him in his mind alone. As patience to achieve a de-concealing of his idea was modified, new iterations essential architecture. were made until they were perfected. This method reveals that Mies was highly aware of, and concerned about, context. The model tempers duality, remaining a symbol for both the idea and the final built work.

Conclusion

Beginning with the Glass Skyscraper Project until his death in 1969, Mies spent fifty years in the investigation of a single typology. The investigation was not laden with detours, but by a dogged determination to refine a single idea. The reconciliation between the ideal and the real was explored and manifested slowly through other typologies. This analysis could have easily explored, for example, his clear-span typology (on it’s journey from Crown Hall to the Cantor

28 MvdR and the Material Spirit Bibliographical Notes: with one another.

1. Simmel, Georg. Schopenhauer and Hegel. page 59. Nietzsche. page 104. 9.Ibid. page 60. 2. Kahn, Louis. Essential Texts. page 69. 10. Schulze, Klaus. A Critical Biography 1985 ed. .page 12 3. Mies van der Rohe. The Presence of Mies. page 59. 11. Ibid. page 14

4...the content of art is the Idea, and... 12. ibid page 15 its form lies in the plastic use of images accessible to sense. 13. ibid page 17

Hegel. Introductory Lectures on Aesthet- 14. ibid. page 65 ics. page 76. 15. Riley, Terence and, Bergdoll, Berry. 5. His (spirits) medium of existence is Mies in Berlin. page 186. therefore essentially inward knowledge and not external natural form, by means 16. Lambert, Phylis. Mies in America. of which He (spirit) can only be repre- page. 357. sented imperfectly, and not in the whole depth of His (spirits) idea. 17. Ibid, page 359.

Ibid. page78. 18. Unsatisfied with Promontory as it was being built... Mies took a mo- 6. The work makes public something mentous step and asked Goldsmith to other than itself; it manifests something draw the building with projecting steel other; it is an allegory. In the work of art mullions. something other is brought together with the thing that is made... The work is a Ibid. page 359. symbol. 19. This revealing gathers together in Heidegger, Martin. From The Origin of advance the aspect and the matter of the Work of Art in Basic Writings. page ship or house, with a view to the finished 146. thing envisaged as complete, and from this gathering determines the manner of 7. Heidegger, Martin. From The Ques- its construction. tion Concerning Technology in Basic Writings. page 336. Heidegger, Martin. From The Question Concerning Technology in Basic Writ- 8. For the modern moralistic view starts ings. page 319. from the fixed antithesis, of the will in its spiritual universality to its sensuous 20. Kahn, Louis. Essential Texts. natural particularity, and consists not page 69. in the completed reconciliation of these contrasted sides, but in their conflict MvdR and the Material Spirit 29

2. Battles Within Rationalism: Program and Structure

Program ~ Structure 31 32 Program ~ Structure Introduction

Nested within the rational and spiritual dialectic lies an internal rationalist tension: Autonomous rationalism, as a design methodology, is in constant dialogue between two conflicting priorities; structure and program.1 (This is a sub-duality which is not as strong or clearly as dialectical as other fundamental dualities discussed in other chapters).

Both of these rationalisms potentially contradict the motivations of the other.* Especially dualistic is the ways in which these pragmatic priorities are expressed. Mies favored the expression of structure over the expression of program, as some critics have pointed out. His high-rise facades are never an apparent expression of program, but a unified grid whose regularity is determined by the division of columns. Other architects who say they favor the expression of program over structure are conversely inhibited by the opposing demands of structure. Structure and program constantly inform each other, pre- venting a purified rationalist reading of any design, yet there is a desire by Mies to reconcile this duality through * Autonomous rationalism does not deal distillation.** with externalities that effect rational decisions such as site context, the place- Mies’s Rational Expression ment of views, solar orientation, or the need for privacy. Ironically, much of Mies’s work, although apparently derived by struc- ** This essay is not a Foucauldian decon- tural means, is simultaneously struction of the subjective nature of ra- determined by program. This pro- tionalism, rather it is an analysis of the grammatic motivation for structure motives of architects working under the goes back to his earliest avant-garde premise of rationalism. Program ~ Structure 33 fig.12 projects in Europe. In the text for the to form the outer skin of the build- Concrete Office Building of 1922-23 ing. Cabinets are placed against these Mies states: walls in order to permit free visibility in the center of the rooms. Above the Functional division of the workspace cabinets, which are 2m high, runs a determines the width of the building: continuous band of windows.2 16m. The most economic system was found to be two rows of columns span- Program determines the structural ning 8m with 4m cantilevered on ei- bay, and it also determines the aes- ther side. The girders are spaced 5m thetic outcome of the facade with apart. These girders carry the floor the exaggerated large spandrels that slabs, which at the end of the canti- conceal filing cabinets (fig. 12). Pro- levers are turned up perpendicularly gram thus obfuscates the clarity of

34 Program ~ Structure the structure. With a 2m high span- The grid dimensions at the Lake drel, program gets in the way of other Shore Drive Apartments were deter- considerations, like views. (Although, mined both through structural and like the interior atrium of Wright’s programmatic optimization as Franz Larkin Building, perhaps the limited Schulze states: view is created to keep workers free from distraction.) Most of the glass ...the 21-foot version [structural bay] tower proposals in the next ten years was selected for the combination of eliminate the filing cabinet facade, al- structural efficiency, accommodation lowing floor to ceiling glass to fully of the residential layout, and precise reveal structure. fitting of buildings to site. (Two bed- rooms just squeeze into a 21- foot bay.) 3

Program ~ Structure 35 fig.13

Similarly, the 24-foot grid for IIT In many cases Mies’s clear-span ty- was originally considered, above pology is hard to justify. Program- other considerations, because of its matically, column free space isn’t configurability between classrooms, necessary in many of the buildings laboratories, and offices4(fig.13). where this typology is implemented. Program is not blatantly expressed, As Schulze points out in the design but it is the invisible motive for the development of the Chicago Post Of- expressed structure. fice; “the switch from clear span to grid required almost no change to the In Mies’s clear-span typologies struc- interior layout, again demonstrating ture is prioritized in expressive terms, that Mies’s clear-span concept was, and it is optimized towards its own for practical purposes, a conceit.”5 need to support. Yet the program and (This, of course, is a pragmatic criti- its requirement for minimal inter- cism of a purely spiritual intention.) ruption is what necessitates the free- span to begin with. This shows the At the 50X50 House project the inescapable interconnectivity between genesis of the idea stemmed from a program and structure, and in some daring structural diagram of four col- cases, the lack of ease in determining umns at the midpoints of the four fac- which informs which. es of a square roof. This structural 36 Program ~ Structure motive is reinforced by the unlimited interchangeability of floor plan lay- outs that were proposed (fig. 14). It is unclear why the program of “house” requires the complete banishment of interior structure, nor does it necessarily inform the reason for such an inefficient structurally acrobatic feat. Columns at the midpoints lack structural optimization, and a completely open plan in a dwelling is not necessarily an optimization of program. This failure of clarity weakens the project. The Farnsworth House contained similar faults, but they are for- givable when one is reminded of the house’s scale and use as a weekend retreat for a single person.

Mies, in a sense, struggled against program his whole professional career. He viewed it as something that limited a building as it progressed through time. Hugo Haring’s contrasting or- ganicist programmatic specificity was too constraining. Mies fundamentally understood technological ages are in constant flux. Program is temporally fluid, and only truly effective as a suggestion.6 Structure, on the other hand, creates a framework for current and future activity. It is open to change and provides for the universal need of mere enclosure. Structure is, therefore, prioritized over program.

This leads ultimately to his abandonment of program in the conception of universal space. Ironically, time has revealed Mies’s universal spaces were too immaculately designed to allow for much variation in program. A lack of programmatic constraint fig.14

Program ~ Structure 37 can also perversely prevent program- The structural feat required of the matic freedom. In the end, Mies em- clear span typology focused too much phasized the structural quality of his emphasis on heavy-handed structure rational decisions, while suppressing even if the intent was to liberate pro- the role that program played in his gram. The rigid grid of structure in buildings. Yet there is an unresolved determining program layout at the tension between these dual rationalist IIT buildings presents a problem as agendas that informs and strengthens well. The distilled separation of this his work. tension with the free plan at the Mu- seum for a Small City allows reconcil- Conclusion iation between the conflicting agendas of autonomous rationalism. This conflict between program and structure is potentially resolved in the use of the free-plan at his Museum for a Small City, a project that arrived at the hinge-point of his career, between his more avant-garde European work and his more classically oriented American Work. His Museum for a Small City project:

...conceived as one large area, allows every flexibility in use. The structural type permitting this is the steel frame. This construction permits the erection of a building with only three basic elements—a floor slab, columns and a roof plate.7

Here the duality between structure and program reaches full distillation. The separation of the two ra- tionalities eliminates any ambiguity of priority. Program and structure operate under autonomous agencies and do not interfere with each other. Program and structure are thus suppressed; no clear emphasis is placed on either. The imposition of architecture fades, and the Museum becomes a tabula rasa for human activity.

38 Program ~ Structure Bibliographical Notes:

1. Eisenman, Peter. in Post Func- tionalism from Architecture Theory Since 1968. page 236

2. MvdR as quoted in Neumeyer’s, The Artless Word. page 241

3. Schulze,Franz. Mies Van Der Rohe: A Critical Biography New and Revised Edition. page 289

4. ibid. page 197

5. ibid. page 346

6. We have to know that life cannot be changed by us. It will be changed but not by us. We can only guide the things that cause physical change.

MvdR from Conversations with Mies van der Rohe, page 26.

7. Mies as quoted in Neumeyer’s, The Artless Word, page 322

Program ~ Structure 39

3. The Duality of Tradition and Innovation

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless; Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is, But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity, Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards, Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point, There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.

T.S. Eliot. (Burnt Norton)

The artist is not a free agent obeying only his own will. His situation is rigidly bound by a chain of prior events...The conditions imposed by these prior events require of him either that he follow obediently in the path of tradition, or that he rebel against the tradition. In either case, his decision is not a free one...1

George Kubler

Tradition ~ Innovation 41 42 Tradition ~ Innovation Introduction

An analysis of Mies van der Rohe and history reveals a constant acknowledgement of historical precedence, ironically even during moments of iconoclastic rupture from that past. In this chapter, a look at the philosophy of the perception of the past (historiography) will create a framework for seeing the ways in which Mies’s relationship with history changed over three clearly different “historio- graphical” phases of his work.

The Hourglass of Time

The present moment conceptually fig.15 sits atop the pyramid of history (fig. 15). All that has gone before has taken us to this specific and inescapable height. Our history thus influences our language, our thought processes, our interactions and our views on art. Even iconoclastic acts are inextrica- bly bound up with the past: therefore, nothing can be truly unhistorical. Acts of the arbitrary, as in the Da- daist movement, occur because prior conditions allowed the formulation of a-historical thinking to emerge.* It is impossible to see how much the bias of our own time affects us until hindsight creates a framework to see the conditions of the situation in a different perspective. Even then, the study of the past becomes biased by the spe- *In fact, the break from history arose cific thought processes of the present from a direct response to World War I, one of history’s worst calamaties. Per (according to Foucault’s epistemologi- 3 this example, a historical event ironically cal unconscious). This established creates an event of historical breakage. the field of Historiography. Dadaist art is something the artist George Grosz suggests is a protest “against the world of mutual destruction.”2 Tradition ~ Innovation 43 Referring back to figure 1; the fu- of past styles do not reflect current ture is an inverted pyramid above the conditions nor contain meaning for aforementioned pyramid of the past. modern civilization. The present moment, similar to the pinch point of an hourglass, concen- On the other hand, Peter Eisenman trates pressure from the future and echoes Kubler’s sentiment concern- releases that pressure onto the pyra- ing the inescapability from the past in mid of the past. Our lives in time are his assessment of Modernity.4 He saw thus rendered as fluid. Inevitability Modernism as a search for objective and uncertainty are ceaseless conse- truth, which superseded a theologi- quences of the future. It is both some- cal truth sought by Classicism. How- thing to fear and the very hope that ever, this was not a break from the promises to unshackle us from the motives of architecture as it always imprisonment of history. existed: positivism merely became the new deity. The new way proposed by Architecture and History modernism, in the end, was not the great break from the past as initially Architects are obsessed with both thought. the past and the future. The preoccupation with the past is expressed Despite it’s similarities to classicism, through tradition. The slow formu- architecture in the twentieth century lation of a style is shaped over long also had projective aspirations. An ar- periods. A vocabulary is developed, chitecture that looked forward prom- refined, perfected, and then imitated. ised the manifestation of a stable, This approach is the model for clas- strong, future. Inevitably, projective sicism, which is broadly defined as architecture becomes utopian in na- architecture that is based on tradi- ture, therefore looking to past uto- tion. This usually entails Roman and pian conceptions. This contradiction Greek traditions but also includes any reinforces the inescapability of his- past historical style that was reinter- tory as it informs traditionalist, and preted from the Renaissance to the even iconoclastic, visions. Neo-Classical. Mies van der Rohe and History Only in recent history has architecture deviated from the classicist mod- The architecture of Mies van der el. Certain master architects of the Rohe and its relationship with history twentieth century proposed a break can be delineated into three phases, from tradition by synthesizing a mod- which have unclear edges and strong ernist architectural language based overlaps. In the first phase there is on industrial age technology and posi- a traditional vernacular style largely tivism. Modernism is thus defined as indebted to the German nineteenth a conscious break from classicism, century vernacular and the architect and a general view that imitations Karl Friedrich Schinkel. The use of

44 Tradition ~ Innovation fig.16

Schinkel as model produces in Mies’s Phase I: Neo-Classicism early work a proto-modernism in the play between symmetrical and asym- With his fist project, the Riehl House metrical volumes. The second phase of 1907(fig. 16), Mies van der Rohe is an apparent modernist break from displays in full his first style as an tradition. This development arose architect. Indebted to traditional ar- from Mies’s embrace of technologi- chitecture, the house appears on its cal and ideological innovations. The surface to be a traditional vernacular third phase is a return to certain clas- cottage of little note, indicating noth- sical motifs in distilled form. ing of future genius to come. Lines are clean, windows and gables are ar- An investigation into these three ranged symmetrically, and a series of phases reveals less difference be- pilasters frame the walls. But, as Fritz tween them than previously thought. Neumeyer points out, the building al- In the classicist phase there hides a ready begins to play games between proto-modernity. In the modernist traditional and innovative practice in phase there lies a hidden classicism, the tension between a sober symme- and in the final phase there lies both try and a playful asymmetrical side a hidden modernism and classicism. facade: This apparent duality between the past and future will reconcile itself in The Riehl House is, in its overall ap- the concept of zeitgeist; an attempt pearance, dualistic. It presents two at a definition and transcendence of faces: in the frontal view it presents time itself. itself as a longitudinally oriented bour- Tradition ~ Innovation 45 geois residence that lies like a cube in front of the terrace garden; from the side, the volume dissolves into a pavilion positioned asymmetrically on a broad base, its volume opened up in a critical location by means of a pilaster system.5

Neumeyer argues the houses facade is composed through both a traditional and novel approach. The asymmetrical garden facade of the Riehl House, in its informal looseness, appears shockingly modernist for 1907, and points towards Mies’s later de Stijl projects beginning in the 1920s.

Schinkel, and certain German proto- modernists such as Peter Behrens (particularly, there are striking similarities to Behrens Hagen Cremato- rium from the same year and town as fig.17 the Riehl House), influenced Mies’s first project, but it is possible that the Riehl House hindsight ascribes hindsight is responsible for giving this a perceived proto-modernity. In its project too much credit as early mod- historical context, the Riehl House ernist. Mies had not yet gone through is only certainly influenced by Pe- his period of careful reading and phi- ter Behrens. Even Schinkel’s villas, losophizing about architecture. This Neumeyer claims6, were introduced search would begin in the decade of to Mies in 1910, three years after the World War One. His understanding Riehl House was completed (although and philosophy of technology, there- it is doubtful, given Schinkel’s promi- fore, had not yet been fully thought nence, that Mies had no knowledge of out. It was also four years before the Schinkel at this time). Despite this influential exhibition of Frank Lloyd critique, the ‘proto-modernist’ facade Wright’s work would reach Germany. of Mies’s first project still manages to transcend its time and helps inform The problem with history lies in our his work to come. manipulation of it; by projecting our knowledge of a projects future in- The same game between formal fluence, we apply certain powers to traditional symmetry and informal the project that were not necessar- asymmetry can be seen in the Wer- ily there when it was created. For ner House from 1913 (fig. 17). Here

46 Tradition ~ Innovation again a low covered pergola path ap- With the Glass Skyscraper project of pends a traditional vernacular Ger- 1922, context models demonstrate man house. This appendage willfully the past way of building. They are undermines the symmetrical charac- shown in the model photographs as ter of the house proper. Proof of this dank, depressing masses gathered is furthered by Mies’s non-articulation at the foot of the skyscraper. Mies’s between main house and pergola; the project, in contrast, suggests a pro- pergola appears to smash into the gressive way to build; one that is uto- side of the houses rear. The use of pian in its promise of fresh air, clean a single colored plaster between the views, and an end to poor living con- two volumes furthers this tension be- ditions. It is not of the present but of tween them as entwined yet separate the future. A search for precedents volumes. or distilled classicist elements in this project is futile. It is Mies’s most There is of course overlap between iconoclastic project, and he never re- this first vernacular phase of Mies’s peated its organically strange shape work and his later explorations in again. The Glass Skyscraper is one Modernist form. Mies continued to of his only projects that does not em- design conservative houses well into brace the duality between innovation the 1920’s (perhaps to pay his bills) and tradition. It is pure innovation, in but his real passion lay in the paper defiance of tradition. But, as we have projects of the time. learned before, a break from history is never fully possible (Kubler). Phase II: Modernism This apparently clear break from The first mature phase of Mies’s ca- classicism is the common theme of reer is a development towards mod- Mies’s middle period of the 1920’s. ernist principles. Mies sought to sep- With the Brick Country House proj- arate his current work from archaic ect, asymmetrical walls that tenuously ways of building and thinking by em- hold rooms together express a purely bracing new technology and positiv- de Stijl conception of infinite spatial istic thought. He expressed frustra- possibility. It is Frank Lloyd Wrights tion with the dishonest way new steel pinwheel plan taken to an extremely frame skyscraper construction was distilled level. Space is not bracketed being covered up by cosmetic tradi- in the same way as Classicist architec- tionalist stone facades: ture. But, as Fritz Neumeyer points out: Only skyscrapers under construction reveal their bold constructive Despite this imperative, one always thoughts....when the structure is lat- finds discrete reverberations of hu- er covered with masonry, this impres- manism and traces of a secret classi- sion is destroyed and then construc- cism, even in Mies’s radical designs of tive character denied.7 the period: for example, in the way in

Tradition ~ Innovation 47 which the floors of the concrete office Mies emphasizes the liberated free- building step out a little one above plan over the rationalist columnar the other, thereby adding some sort grid. The hidden classicism of the of entasis to the wall,.....With such symmetrical columns at the Barcelo- refinements, Mies contradicted his na Pavilion are suppressed as much as own crude logic of positivistic form.8 possible with the use of chrome cov- ering, creating a literal camouflage.9 When analyzing Mies’s Modernist The cruciform shape is also demateri- work, one must search for the clas- alizing. The combined effect of mate- sical in the modernist. The spatial rial and shape undermine the corpo- formula realized in the Brick Country real presence of the column. Thus, House is repeated in the Barcelona the symmetrical structural grid -- the Pavilion, The Tugendhat House, and most pragmatic part of the project -- the House for a Bachelor (fig. 18). is given spiritual qualities. To compli- With these three projects, the use cate this ambiguous reading further, of an ordered structural column grid Kenneth Frampton points out that allows for a free placement of the the fluting, although a dematerializa- facade and interior walls. If the col- tion, is also allusive of the “varying umns and the roof are isolated from flute-widths of classical columns.”10 this free-plan, we see a parti of pure Both a reification and a denial of the symmetry and regularity. In all three past are simultaneously present. examples the columns are arranged is symmetrical rows. The roofs all The progressive free plan retains the have equidistant overhangs that proj- most visibility, but within the free- ect from the column grid. Symmetry standing walls there are also allusions and regularity -- distilled principles to classicism in the use of symmetri- of classicism -- are in contrast to the cal bookmatching of marble. Book- fluid movement that defines modern- matching is not a new technique and ist space. These contrasting opera- Mies would have certainly been aware tions occur simultaneously. The un- of it in Schinkel’s Altes Museum. noticing free plan defiantly slides past This ambiguity between old and new the columns as they attempt to bind is further mirrored in the dialectic the space. The duality creates a ten- between the traditional stone clad sion: a tension that operates between floor and the futuristic smooth white timelessness (the grid) and ephemeral ceiling. This complicates the dual- temporality (the perception of move- ity: Distilled elements of free-plan ment in the walls). The duality could and grid are undermined by material also be read as a tension between techniques, rendering a strange swirl static arrival (the grid) and fluid be- of ambiguous allusions to the past coming (the free plan). alongside projections of a machinic, dematerialized future. However, this duality is not evenly balanced: through material expression

48 Tradition ~ Innovation fig.18-1: Barcelona Pavilion (showing distilled roof and column grid.)

fig.18-2: Tugendhadt House.

fig.18-3: House for a Bachelor. Tradition ~ Innovation 49 Phase III: Distilled Classicism architecture to stay relevant beyond its contemporary conception. But The Modernist project is never aban- Mies was also concerned with ex- doned in the final phase of Mies van pressing the appropriate spirit of his der Rohe’s career, but something own time. Through the concept of different certainly occurs between zeitgeist he found a way to resolve his mature work in Germany and this apparent contradiction. This his mature work after he moved to term can be defined as anything that America. In America, a distilled clas- attempts to both define and tran- sicism is suddenly and distinctly felt. scend the spirit of its own time. This The use of symmetry, seriality, and paradox is elaborated further by Pe- rigid proportion (qualities described ter Eisenman: earlier as distillations of classicism) restricted a purely Modernist read- The illusory timelessness of the pres- ing of his late work; the American ent brings with it an awareness of works seems much more conserva- the timeful nature of the past time.... tive. Symmetry by its nature dictates Thus, in the zeitgeist argument, there the free plan and suggests a motive will always be this unacknowledged beyond pure functionality. Crown paradox, a simulation of the timeless Hall at the Illinois Institute of Tech- through a replication of the timeful. 11 nology presents a project of classical proportioning, repetitive bays, and Eisenman is stating that the only way a symmetrical plan. These all work to the timeless is through the fulfill- to give the project a certain formal- ment of the possibilities of one’s own ity that prevents it from being read time. The architecture of Mies’s late as an iconoclastic modernist build- career, therefore, in its mixture being. Crown Hall cannot be read as tween distilled classicism and mod- purely projective, but neither can it ernism, is part of a larger ambition be considered retrospective. It reads to fulfill the zeitgeist by defining and as a skeleton, because classical mo- denying its state of present-ness. tifs in the work and its materiality are distant echoes of literal classicism. A reading of Mies’s American work Distilled classicist elements bind it as conservative would not do justice to history. Simultaneously, distilled to its verve and spirit. In the same modern ‘almost nothing’ aesthetics way a distillation of his European keeps it free from the past. These el- work reveals a hidden classicism (in ements work in a duality: the project the uniformity of the column grid and transcends and concedes to both the roof); a distillation of his American past and the future. The project thus work reveals a hidden de Stijl, avant- achieves timelessness. garde, residue. Colin Rowe famously downplayed the symmetrical charac- Timelessness becomes the oblitera- ter of Crown Hall by showing that the tion of fashion or trend, a desire for symmetry does not read that way:

50 Tradition ~ Innovation fig.19: Symmetrical whole and asymmetrical parts.

...once inside, rather than any spatial climax, it offers a central solid, ...an insulated core around which the space travels laterally with the enclosing windows...in spite of the centralizing activity of the entrance vestibule, the space still remains, though in very much simplified form, the rotary, peripheric organization of the twen- ties, rather than the predominantly centralized composition of the true Palladian or classical plan.12

In this same spirit, if one isolates the plan into one half of its symmetrical whole, the project once again reads as a de Stijl composition that is about the free walls gliding through space, oblivious to the ordering structure (fig. 19). The use of symmetry (which I argue against Rowe is still legible in the space) and its mirroring ef-

Tradition ~ Innovation 51 fig.20-1: Crown Hall seriality. (As is)

fig.20-2: Crown Hall hierarchy. (Speculation) fect stifles the otherwise spontane- beams all appear to be of uniform ous effect of the partition walls. The thickness even though they change as constant double reading of the space they get closer to the center of the as symmetry and asymmetry creates building; but this is hidden from view a tension in the work that keeps it by the roof. paradoxically rooted and futuristic. Symmetry, of course, plays the op- This paradox is carried to the exte- posite role by referencing a Schin- rior where there is also a competing kelesque past. The only external at- tension between symmetry and serial- tempt at neo-classical hierarchy other ity. The uniformity of the elevation than the overall symmetry is at the into a repetitive series analogizes the entrance patio and the modest front building as an industrial age mass- doors. But these efforts are over- produced machine. This is a nod to whelmed by the emphasis on serial- the modernist innovations of Fordist ity. Just as Rowe demonstrated with streamlined production. Window bays his analysis on the interior, symmetry are completely uniform around the does not perform in a Palladian way building (even the outlying bays which on the exterior (fig. 20). inflect beyond the final structural column). The symbolic lintel line of The ghost of Mies’s avant-garde past the doors is carried across the entire is evident in his treatment of indi- perimeter skin diffusing any possible vidual buildings in an urban fabric. ceremonial function at the point of At IIT and Lafayette Park, individual entry. The mullions vary only where buildings may be symmetrical and they absorb structure, but this is only have a distilled classicism; however, hierarchichal within the series, rather the cluster of buildings do not adhere than inflecting towards the symmetry to a beaux-arts classical axial plan. of the whole. The large externalized Instead they read in a de Stijl man- 52 Tradition ~ Innovation ner, similar to the reading of walls in newly considered solution to the his earlier European work. A com- problem of zeitgeist. The American parison of the floor plan of the Bar- work acknowledges the past further, celona Pavilion and the site plan of and in so doing (in conjunction with Lafayette Park reveals stark similari- the use of timely methods and mate- ties (fig. 21). The only major differ- rials of construction) allows the work ence is scale. to transcend time while also expressing the essence of its present-ness. This free arrangement of individu- Tradition and progress collaborate in ally symmetrical buildings is almost conjunction with each other, express- universal in his skyscraper projects. ing a dynamic, dualist, tension. This Lake Shore Drive Apartments, Chi- assessment makes it clear that the cago Federal Center, and the Toronto American work was not a step back- Dominion Centre, all follow the mod- wards towards conservative classi- el of autonomous distilled classicist cism (as many believe), but a progres- buildings arranged in a looser de Stijl sion, which absorbed and reconciled urban composition. The avant-garde disparities between tradition and in- motif found in the urban design pre- novation. vents the buildings from becoming te- dious and oppressively totalitarian.

Conclusion

Mies van der Rohe was aware of his inextricable relationship with the past. On a surface level the three phases of his work demonstrate a traditional phase, a modernist phase, and a distilled synthesis between these two in the final phase. How- ever, a deeper search into his early work reveals a proto-modernity, a deeper search into his modernist work in Europe reveals a ‘secret classicism,’ and a deeper search into his apparently more rigid classicist work in America reveals a persistent modernism. The uncovering of these opposing conditions suggest that Mies’s career between Europe and America is not as differentiated as one may have thought; there is merely a shift in emphasis’. This may be due to a

Tradition ~ Innovation 53 fig.21-1: Rhythm of a Russian Dancer by Theo van Doesburg

fig.21-2: Barcelona Pavilion

fig.21-3: Lafayette Park site plan fragment. 54 Tradition ~ Innovation Bibliographical Notes: 11. Eisenman, Peter. from, Architec- ture Theory Since 1968. Edited by 1.Kubler, George. The Shape of K. Michael Hays. page 529 Time. page 44-45 12. Rowe, Colin. The Mathematics 2. Schneede, Uwe M. George Grosz, of the Ideal Villa. page 149 His life and work. London: Universe Books, 1979.

3. [Foucault] looks for what he calls the ‘episteme’, that is, the largely unconscious assumption concerning intellectual order that underlie the historical states of particular societ- ies...These conditions lie below perception, they are not always explicit, so that the episteme is a kind of epis- temological unconscious for an age.

Butler, Christopher. Postmodernism: A Very Short Introduction. page 46

4. Eisenman, Peter. from, Architec- ture Theory Since 1968. Edited by K. Michael Hays. page 528

5. Neumeyer, Fritz. The Artless Word. page 45

6. Neumeyer, Fritz. From A World in Itself: Art and Technology in The Presence of Mies. page 79

7. Quote found in Mies in America. Lambert, Phylis editor. page 361

8. ibid. page 76

9. Frampton, Kenneth. Mies Recon- sidered. page 43

10. ibid.

Tradition ~ Innovation 55

4. Protection and Connection

Only now can we articulate space, open it up, and connect it to the landscape, thereby filling the spatial needs of modern man.

Mies van der Rohe

The men of old were born like the wild beasts, in woods, caves, and groves, and lived on savage fare....

Vitruvius

Protection ~ Connection 57 58 Protection ~ Connection Prologue

Early mankind’s realization that their bodies were inadequate at withstand- ing the harsh climactic realities of nature led to the utilization of an externalized second skin for protection. This second skin manifested itself in the concept of shelter, initially found and soon created by humankind as a fig.22 protection from the elements.

Isolation from the environment was This duality reveals an inversion of its an undesired effect of shelter. In original purpose: The very act of pro- being sheltered, mankind simultane- tection forms the opposite need for ously required a visual connection to connection. Architecture serves both the outside. The connection was both needs in opposition simultaneously. A pragmatic and spiritual: Pragmati- gradient exists in every built work be- cally, early humankind needed to see tween these two antipodes. An ideal perceived threats, such as predators building either reconciles these com- or the weather, to assess whether peting desires or exploits the irreso- they could venture beyond the shelter. lution to achieve vibrant tension. Spiritually, connection gave agency to both a defiance-from and longing-for Mies, Architecture, and Nature the outside. Nature is Dionysian in character; it is contingent and preda- The work of Mies van der Rohe tory. Shelter is the Apollonian order demonstrates that the new technol- that frames nature. ogy and methods for creating architecture in the twentieth century al- The effects of this duality are seen in lowed for new ways to perform the Le Corbusier’s sketch of the Pompe- protection~connection duality. From ian Forum (fig.22), which renders col- his very first project, the Riehl House umns as rhythmically measuring the of 1907 (fig.23), a deliberate blur- undulating landscape beyond: Contin- ring of lines between outside and in- gent nature is framed by a hardened side is visible. The sloped facade of symbol of permanence. An Apollo- the house has a basement level wall nian architectural framing thus con- that extends beyond the house and trols the Dionysian landscape. The into the landscape, breaking the clear view of nature is also an embrace ex- line where house begins and ends. Fo- pressing the desire to return to a state liage smatters itself across this wall, that is now lost by our separation and which reads simultaneously as an act demarcation from the wilderness. of invasion and blockage of nature

Protection ~ Connection 59 60 Protection ~ Connection fig.23 Protection ~ Connection 61 from the house. Fritz Neumeyer elaborates on this wall further:

The wall extension defines site and place with a single, deliberate line. It furnishes the needed contrast to the plastic volumetricity, articulates the immediate surroundings, and responds to the wooded hillside on the opposite side of the lake. Mies designed a cadence that, with its far- reaching spatial rhythm, freed the fig.2 architectural elements from their as distilled elements that both con- respective limitations only to release nects-with and protects-from nature. them into a larger context of tran- On first reading the glass walls are 1 scendence. the elements that link and the brick walls are the elements that shelter. Above the extended wall, an enclosed However, it is the extended brick porch creates a transitional space walls that act as the connecting de- somewhere between inside and out- vice: Through extension, the opaque side. If one is entering the house, exterior wall (something that has the porch operates as a rehearsal throughout history served as a filter space towards a fully interior condi- from nature) is activated, allowing it tion, and vice versa for those exiting to join with nature through an imita- the house. tion of the infinite horizon.

The prototypically modernist themes Roofs and floors also overhang be- present in the Riehl House become yond the borders of the house. The explicit in the 1923 project for a cumulative effect of these tricks is Brick Country House (fig. 24). Here the creation of an agitated or am- the walls extend into nature well be- biguous edge between interior and yond the edges of the house, and ap- exterior. The house simultaneously pear to fly past the drawing’s edge. thrusts outwards towards nature and As in the paintings of Mondrian, the pulls nature inside the confines of line beyond the frame of the repre- the house. The shape of the house sentation implies infinite extension. restricts a clear reading of it as an The extended walls are often situated autonomous object separated from perpendicularly to a full height glass nature. Instead, the walls and fa- wall, allowing for total visibility of the cade act as sliding planes arrested for brick wall as it extends outward. The a brief moment in time and on the glass wall also provides an interior verge of total dissemblance. spectator with an uninterrupted view into nature. Glass and brick walls act

62 Protection ~ Connection fig.25 Wolf Tegethoff points out that an ...first appeared to derive from the exterior reading of the house is com- respective representations of the per- pletely different from the interior spective and the ground plan, but we reading just described. From the in- now recognize that it is not a matter side, the walls read as constantly of inadequacy of representation but moving planes that direct the free something deliberately intended.3 flow of space from one room to the next, but from the outside the house Mies exploited differences willfully looks rather conservative and closed in order to create simultaneous, yet off.2 As the elevational perspective mutually exclusive phenomenon. The emphasizes (fig. 25), the walls often need for shielding and privacy is sat- terminate at corners on the outside, isfied on the exterior, while the need resulting in a predominately opaque for outside linkage is satisfied inside. form. The de Stijl aesthetic is elaborated Furthermore, the heavy vertical mul- further in Mies’s courthouse projects lions of the windows, along with their of the 1930’s. In these examples the shading, reinforce the presence of extension of high walls are relegated the glass (Its solidity as a material, to the perimeter. The walls close in rather than as an ephemeral bridge upon themselves blocking all views to the exterior, is reified). The house except that of sky, providing neces- thus reads from the outside as an au- sary privacy in a postulated urban tonomous form. The extending walls, fabric (fig. 26). The boundary of the which reach beyond the limits of the architecture thus extends beyond the perspective, ineffectively create an interior space. An exterior courtyard ambiguity between inside and out. is folded into the composition of the Tegethoff suggests that the roof over- entire building ultimately creating an hangs are the only things that accom- ambiguity between inside and out. plish this blurring. This contradic- The courtyard performs as another tion between the reading of interior room in the house, but without a and exterior: roof. Protection ~ Connection 63 fig.26

With the Hubbe House project of 1934 (fig.27), a hybrid response addresses a context that is both urban and private. The perimeter walls extend beyond the house in a similar fashion to the exterior walls of the court-house projects, however, at one moment, where the private view is desired, the wall is broken, and a framed view of nature beyond is vis- fig.27 ible. The opening in the wall also responds to program as it occurs at the To extrapolate Tegethoff’s earlier location of the living room. Walls analysis of the Brick Country House remain enclosed and read as a pri- further; the exterior street condition vate courtyard at the locations of the of the court-house projects appear bedroom. Glass is treated tradition- even more severely cut off from their ally (punched windows in an opaque urban environment. They read as au- wall) on the public front facade. The tonomous, hermetic, and unwelcom- back facade opens up to full height ing additions to the city. glass walls. The public entrance fa- 64 Protection ~ Connection cade thus remains private, while the of Frank Lloyd Wright and the Nazi family’s activities remain sealed from era houses of Hans Scharoun. view. The effect of the extended wall in the The increased use of glass in Mies’s Hubbe House is elaborated further in work required this type of distilla- the collages of the Resor House proj- tion between a public and private fa- ect from 1937 (fig. 28). This time cade. (This separation didn’t occur architecture is reduced to a framing at the Brick Country House because device for nature. The frame (like the house did not have an apparent the colonnade of the Greek temple front or back.) The front public fa- mentioned earlier) is represented as a cade operates as a private and even permanent ordered device that, in its back-of-house condition. Only at the act of enframing nature, controls it. actual back does the house open up The architecture reads as permanent, and fully express itself. The public fa- ideal, and abstracted, while nature, cade becomes marginalized, in a near in contrast, reads as mutable, fallen, reversal of the traditional house type. and real. This hermetic public front is a trope of modern architecture widely pres- This timeless framing of contingent ent in the Usonian House prototype nature is proven phenomenologically

fig.28 Protection ~ Connection 65 effective at the Farnsworth house. an interior condition rendered against On the inside, one can see the trees an urban exterior. The effect then, is blown by the wind, but the wind is not about a return, embrace, or long- silent. The thrill gained from this ing for nature, but a connection (and surprising effects reveals something simultaneous removal from) the city about humanities relationship with itself. Mies uses several devices in his nature: One gains a perverse pleasure skyscraper projects to gradually tran- in viewing a rainstorm without actu- sition from urban exterior to building ally getting wet, or watching a bliz- interior. The Seagram Building (figs. zard with hands over a warm fire. It 29), being the prototype for his high- is the satisfaction of conquering the rise work, will serve as the example. thing that seeks one’s destruction. A plaza wedged between the city and street edge separates the building With the Resor and Farnsworth hous- from the normal condition of the sur- es the overwhelming view of nature rounding buildings. It becomes an marginalizes the architecture. The interior of absence in contrast to the house is distilled to such a degree it thick wall of skyscrapers, a wall that is removed of its own flavor. Nature creates a street condition evocative of in its overwhelming variety injects a cut valley. This otherness is further the architecture with mood. Architec- elaborated by K. Michael Hays as a ture thus behaves like tofu; flavorless spiritual disconnection from the city, yet highly absorbent to that which it a move that protects the spirit of the comes into contact with. built work:

The Resor House also emphasizes The simultaneous production of dif- the importance of architecture’s oth- ference and integration with the so- erness from nature. It stands as an cial city, this impossible third term or object that is clearly not nature and “bound duality” is what the Seagram cannot be confused by anyone to be plaza as built tries to effect. It is a anything but something made by a ra- cut-out in the city, a literal nothing tional, thinking mind. Thus mimesis endowed nevertheless with a positive is shunned by Mies as a dilution of presence through its material and di- architecture from its human origins. mensional precision.4 Protection and connection, then, cannot be effectively rendered when the The covered space between the outside edge between inside and outside is plaza and the lobby is the next step unclear. in this gradual transition, a condition Mies uses in all of his mature high- Architecture and the City rise projects (fig.30). The hovering canopy that juts out from this space is In the American city the protection also viewable as a beckoning-in when and connection duality no longer pits in the plaza, as well as a thrusting- building against nature, but building as outward when inside the lobby. This

66 Protection ~ Connection fig.29. Density diagrams. L-R: Lake Shore Drive Apartments, Seagram Building, Toronto Dominion Center. Protection ~ Connection 67 fig.30 space refers once again back to his Only now can we articulate space, first project, the Riehl House. It is a open it up, and connect it to the zone neither in nor out; a rehearsal landscape, thereby filling the spatial space that transitions between either needs of modern man.5 conditions relative to departure or arrival. With the huge expanses of His attempts to objectively work with glass, the lobby itself, though effec- the available technology at hand al- tively an interior condition, still has lowed him to rethink this relation- the aura of an exterior space. The ship, open it up, and further agitate break from the outside is limited, but the edge between inside and outside. it is violently cut off when one enters This dynamic tension, while bringing the dense elevator core. a building in further connection to nature, also managed to serve as a re- Conclusion minder of how cut off and abstracted we really are from it in the modern Mies van der Rohe exploited the ten- epoch. sion between protection and connection from very early on in his career:

68 Protection ~ Connection Bibliographical Notes:

1.Neumeyer, Fritz. The Artless Word. page 47

2. Tegethoff, Wolf. MvdR: The Villas and Country Houses. page 47

3. Ibid.

4. Hays, K. Michael. From Odysseus and the Oarsmen, or, Mies’s Abstrac- tion Once Again, in The Presence of Mies. page 239.

5. Mies Van Der Rohe. 1933.

Protection ~ Connection 69

5. Programmatic Distillation and the Grounding~Flotation Duality

Two souls, alas are dwelling in my breast, And either would be severed from its brother; The one holds fast with joyous earthy lust Onto the world of man with organs cling- ing; The other soars impassioned from the dust, To realms of lofty forebears winging.

Goethe’s Faust

Grounding ~ Flotation 71 72 Grounding ~ Flotation fig.31 Introduction ency, spaciousness, and lightness of ambiguous program. Each allows for Programmatic distillation is an im- the presence of the other, and their portant duality in the work of Mies proximity to each other strengthens van der Rohe and it addresses many their opposing intentions. other dualities in the process. It allows for the flowering of a univer- This duality crystalizes as a result of sal competing desire in architecture technological innovations during the between grounding and flotation. era, including large plate glass manu- Grounding addresses one’s desire for facturing and lightweight steel and a building to root itself into the earth, concrete construction. both as an acknowledgment of its corporeal nature, and a reassurance that Heavy and Light Mies it is stable and will not fall down. It reveals a positivist truth of facts, one Heaviness and lightness are deftly that participates in the world of real- contrasted in the Concrete House ity. Flotation is a direct break from project of 1923 (fig. 31). Concrete the stifling effect that gravity puts as a material reads heavy, yet Mies’s upon patrons. It attempts to defy the dematerialization of the corner with temporal and corporeal effects of re- ribbon windows and cantilevered con- ality, to reach transcendence, and ar- crete roofs undermines the weighti- rive at the possibility of an idealized ness of the material. This is rein- metaphysical truth. forced by the basement clerestory windows, which stand in as both a The effect of flotation occurs where negation of the floor plate and a de- program is concentrated into dense materialization of the traditionally cores. These dense cores are heavy heavy corner.1 (again, an undermining both programmatically and materially. of the expected structural nature of Opacity, heaviness and dense program concrete). This is tempered by ele- provides contrast with the transpar- ments that reinforce the heaviness of

Grounding ~ Flotation 73 the concrete, such as the terminating wall of the living room with its anchoring fireplace, and the heavy solid plinth, which rests directly on the earth.* Program distillation is harder to assess because there are no surviving plans of the house. Based on his other house designs of the period, however, it can be assumed that program is not as clearly separated between servant and served space as is found in his American work.

At the Seagram Building, dense program is concentrated into heavy cores clad in travertine (fig. 32). At the cores this effect is heightened by half fig.32 submerged columns, dramatic light- ing and the suppression of openings. This allows for its inverse, the loosely programmed lobby, which is transparent and light in effect. The one allows for the other, and their mutual presence strengthens the quality of each. This distillation of specific programs is pragmatically motivated. Bundled utilities at the center of a high-rise are economical, which allows for uninterrupted exterior walls and programmatic freedom. This is not a new notion for steel framed high-rises (the old fashioned structural perimeter walls of the Monadnock Building being an exception), which had already been around for over sixty years, but through an elimina- *These effects are of course borrowed tion of ornament, and consequently, tricks from the prairie school work of the use of totally glazed facades, the Frank Lloyd Wright. At the Heurtley contrast achieves potency. House in Oak Park, for example, the heavy oversized base board and the exag- The concentrated distilled core al- gerated arch entrance conveys heaviness, ready exists in Mies’s earliest high- while the ribbon windows just below the rise projects. At the Friedrichstrasse, roofline reinforce the flotational quality of the roof. 74 Grounding ~ Flotation fig. 33 three identical cores of vertical cir- trates specific functionality, making culation surround a hollow central room for the clarified yet ambiguous space. For the most part, cores are program of the pavilion above. The suppressed and not used as opaque plinth is a grounding element that foils to the overarching transparency ties it to the earth and the real (fig. of the work. The absence of the cores 33). Its allowance for function sug- in the Glass Skyscraper model proves gests mundane human activities (a this. Therefore, the duality is not ex- weakness considering its use for the ploited yet. display of art). In contrast the pavilion above floats and thus loses its The rejection of heaviness in these corporeal presence. Activity is given early projects has a polemical dimen- a spiritual gravitas and ceremony. sion as well. The dissolution of mass This is akin to the Parthenon atop for transparency is a critique of an the rock of the Acropolis: The lofty abstract notion of previous power floats and touches the sky, while the structures, which gained authority real cleaves to the earth, reinforcing through obfuscation (a lack of meta- gravity’s constraint. phorical transparency). A glass tower also absorbs and participates with the Shortcomings inclusive city rather than sheltering itself from it in the way the solid sur- There are instances in Mies’s archi- rounding buildings do. tecture where the duality does not appear in equilibrium. This results in a At the Berlin National Gallery, pro- building that appears either too heavy gram distillation is clarified section- or too lithe. At the Farnsworth House ally. A heavy, opaque plinth concen- the central core is negated by the open Grounding ~ Flotation 75 space below it. At Philip Johnson’s thetically heavy effect. Other than a (albeit inferior) Glass House, the core programmatic distillation, the house acts as an anchoring device simply be- does not participate in this particular cause it both directly touches and is dialectical reading. of the same material –red brick-- as the ground. At the Farnsworth, this At the Cantor Drive-In project (fig. reading only works when inside the 34), the truss holding up the roof ap- house, but it is undermined by the pears too heavy, even if its intention dematerialization of the core with is to read at the scale of the freeway. its light colored wood paneling and The massive truss undermines the the extended walls, which bookend floating roof from the exterior and the fireplace and the kitchen. Com- makes it appear as if it is pinned down bined with the white painted steel by the weight of the truss. From the and the pale travertine floor, nothing inside, where the truss is not visible, in the Farnsworth House has an aes- this heaviness is not present, but that fig. 34

76 Grounding ~ Flotation also means there is a lack of contrast end, Mies was more interested in flo- for all the light elements on the in- tation. The heavy element in his work terior. The delicate proportioning was always an inferior backdrop for of the externalized roof structure at the “almost nothing” aesthetic that he Crown Hall and the Manheim The- favored. But it was necessary as an ater Project do not oppress the over- element of sharp contrast to heighten all composition. the effects of its inverse.

Conclusion

Program distillation was a constant element in the work of Mies van der Bibliographical Notes: Rohe, yet the transformation of this duality into the grounding~flotation 1.Eisenman,Peter. Mies Reconsid- duality did not always occur. In the ered. page 89.

Grounding ~ Flotation 77 78 Grounding ~ Flotation 6. Glass: Clarity and Obscurity

Clarity ~ Obscurity 79 fig.35

80 Clarity ~ Obscurity fig.36 fig.37 Introduction calibrations of the reflective effects of a glass facade.1 The material’s Through the heavy use of glass, Mies ambiguity is not only acknowledged van der Rohe -- perhaps accidentally-- but exploited. Glass operates simul- discovered a new phenomenological taneously as something that reveals duality, which is different from all and obfuscates, and its ability to do the dualities previously discussed. A either is contingent upon the time of phenomenological duality exists as a day, weather, and subject’s location. result of the uncontrollable effects Shadows are downplayed and re- of light upon a building. Light both placed by reflections: One mysterious reveals and conceals contingent upon phenomenon replaces another. specific environmental effects, such as time of day, weather conditions, and Several different photographs of the the various shading and reflections Glass Skyscraper model reveal the of surrounding objects and surfaces. aleatory phenomenology of glass. Mies’s acknowledgement of these in- The building is shown transparent in evitable effects prevents a simple pla- Figure 4. Floor plates and structure tonic reading of his work. are clearly revealed. A low shot of the model (fig. 35), shows the opposite; Late nineteenth century structural ad- the building is opaque due to many vancements allowed building facades fragmented reflections of clouds, to finally open up to the outside. Ex- which gives it a marble-like quality. terior walls -- previously opaque due Only on the extreme edges does the to load bearing requirements-- were glass remain transparent. now made of lightweight steel, which allowed large expanses of glass to in- The phenomenon of ever changing fill between minimal structure. Glass clouds and seasons reflected onto could operate as a screen that pro- the facade suggests Mies was striving tects one from outside climate and for an architecture of open spirit, re- smog while also maintaining a vista. moved from the physical reality that it contrasts in the context models. Mies’s Phenomenology of Glass A third photograph (fig. 36) reveals the shimmering, glowing effects of In two of his earliest projects, the the building at night. This night view Friedrichstrasse and Glass Skyscrap- exploits neither transparency nor er of 1922, Mies van der Rohe play- reflectivity. Instead the building is fully explored the new possibilities of pure light shining upwards, illuminat- glass. Mies learns large amounts of ing the darkened city. Building here glass create a paradoxical phenom- becomes an illusion, a dream, and a enon of transparency and high re- spectre from the future. flectivity. Mies states that the irregular (un-Miesian!) shape of the Glass Still other phenomena of transparen- Skyscraper project is due to careful cy are revealed in the rendering tech-

Clarity ~ Obscurity 81 Glass Skyscraper Aleatory Phenomena 82 Clarity ~ Obscurity fig.38 nique of the elevation drawing (fig. of 1929 (fig. 38). Here glass is once 37). Here the building does not give again used experimentally. Many dif- off a quality of transparency; instead ferent colors and techniques of glass it appears as an undulating wave, usage in the project suggest Mies was abruptly sheared off at the top, sug- reveling in its quality to both clarify gesting a truncated form of infinite his distilled structure and, at the same height. The effect of the glass is that time, undermine reality by washing it of a waterfall or a folded curtain. in ambiguous reflections that destabi- lize a proper reading of clear space. Model photographs and renderings This destabilization is reified in the all reveal Mies full knowledge of the supplementary materials of the proj- dual effects of glass. His subsequent ect, all of which contribute to the career is a grappling between this ambiguation of space. The chrome material and its ability to both reveal columns and mullions dematerialize and conceal. The expressionistic be- in reflection. Marble wall surfaces ginning to his career cannot be ig- are polished to a mirror sheen. The nored in light of his later objectivist very act of bookmatching the marble aims: Glass can never be about total creates a “reflection” within the ma- clarity for Mies even if he states this terial itself. The rippling reflections as his purely objective architectural of water are the last step in creating aim in texts. a space that ends up distilling itself right out of reality. This virtual space An equally important project in re- acts as if it were a reflection or mi- vealing the dual nature of glass is rage, ready to disintegrate at any found in Mies’s Barcelona Pavilion moment. At its center, a translucent

Clarity ~ Obscurity 83 ing of the sculpture in the water and the rippling wave effects of the marble walls reinforce this illusionistic quality.

The Barcelona Pavilion introduces us to a building that visually reveals more than any precedent, yet ironically conceals in a whole new fashion, not through opacity, but through reflectivity, which destabilizes space. fig.39 As Rebecca Comay puts it: glowing glass core ominously suggests some contained secret or spirit, ...transparency that might have over- obfuscated from our view: Contained come the difference between inside within the building is an ungraspable and outside,.....,manages somehow mystery. to do precisely the opposite.2

This all works in complete distinction The phenomenon of glass thus pre- to a reading of the building as open vents a pure Hegelian reconciliation and clear (clarity being the assumed of dualities; instead Mies had to find intentional effect of heavy glass us- power in the tension between oppo- age). In contrast to its surround- sites. ing context, and due to the fact that there was no actual barrier between Glass is ubiquitous in the American inside and out, the Pavilion can be work of Mies van der Rohe. His phil- objectively assessed as an object of osophical ideal of a pure objective ar- total clarity. This, however, can only chitecture, embraced more so in this be a platonic objectivist view. Once latter stage, emphasized glass as an the phenomenological effects previ- object that allows for a clear diagram. ously discussed are experienced by But the lessons learned from his ear- a spectator one can assume Mies’s lier projects show that Mies was well non-totalized subjective intent.* The aware of the ambiguous effects glass effects, therefore, could not possibly could play. This casts his American be lost on Mies, because he utilized work in a different light if we are to them like a master magician would assume that the dual effects of clarify- utilize his illusions. Proof of Mies ing and obfuscating glass are present phenomenological intent can be seen in an interior rendering produced for the building (fig. 39). The drawing reveals a reverse negative effect upon walls and surfaces as they pass *These phenomenological effects, of through the glass wall. The mirror- course, paint Mies as a post-modernist. 84 Clarity ~ Obscurity fig. 40

Clarity ~ Obscurity 85 in the work. Mies absorbs both clarity movie while spending the night at the and obscurity into his more distilled Farnsworth House!) and “conservative” American work.

In the Toronto-Dominion Centre glass The effect of voyeurism in glass sky- oscillates between clarity and obscu- scraper architecture is a side effect rity contingent upon viewer location of clarity that Mies may have found and time of day (fig. 40). During unsettling precisely because his build- daylight hours the exterior glass ap- ings were about silence. Silence pro- pears opaque and reflective from the duces tranquility, but voyeurism per- outside, and completely transparent verts and disrupts this peace of mind. from the inside. At night the effect A solution for this problem, found in is reversed and the building glows, almost all of his American work, is revealing its interior functions. From the use of blinds to cover the glass the interior, the glass at night ap- as desired allowing for user freedom. pears as an opaque mirrored surface. Blinds allow for the tailoring of views The glass acts as a two-way mirror and privacy. where the observer on either side is aware that they are potentially being Glass also allows the absorption and watched or are watching someone collapse of the surrounding environ- whom does not know they are being ment: watched. This effect is a potentially unsettling aspect of heavy amounts ...transparency is here mixed with of glass. (Consider watching a horror reflection and the compression onto the surface of the glass of the distant fig. 41 view of the surrounding environment, all of which produces a visible mark of the natural and social worlds ‘out there’ of the everyday existence in all its particularity that Mies’ work has been supposed to deny.3

Hays shows that glass binds the work to its context. Mies was definitely aware of this when he aligned the entrance of the Seagram Building with the New York Racket Club by Mckim, Mead and White across the street (fig. 41).

86 Clarity ~ Obscurity Conclusion Bibliographical Notes:

Glass allows for a building to take 1. I discovered by working with actual on an ephemeral spiritual quality glass models that the important thing that removes it from the historically is the play of reflections, not the ef- solid city. This effect has been lost fect of light and shadow as in ordi- somewhat in the wake of a glass sky- nary buildings. scraper boom, instigated ironically by Mies himself, placing his skyscrapers MvdR. 1922 in a field of self-same reflective glass boxes. However, photographs of the 2. Comay, Rebecca. From Almost time, and the modeling of solid con- Nothing: Heidegger and Mies in The text in his earliest Glass Skyscraper Presence of Mies. page 181 project, show the pristine towers in extreme, lightweight, contrast to the 3. Hays, K. Michael From The Mies heavy, soot-ridden city. Conversely, Effect in Mies in America. page 695 glass in its reflective mode, absorbs that same city, mirroring it back onto itself as either a celebration or some form of critique. The effect for Mies is a camouflaging of his work. At night, however, the dark masses of stone leviathans were outshone by Mies’s glass psalm.

Clarity ~ Obscurity 87

7. Freedom and Constraint

Freedom ~ Constraint 89 DUALITY RELATIONSHIPS

CONSTRAINT FREEDOM

APOLLONIAN ------DIONYSIAN MATERIAL ------SPIRITUAL TRADITION ------INNOVATION PROTECTION ------CONNECTION GROUNDING ------FLOTATION CLARITY------OBSCURITY STRUCTURE------PROGRAM

HOMOGENEITY ------HETEROGENEITY OBJECT ------SUBJECT CLOSED ------OPEN SYMMETRY ------ASYMMETRY SERIALITY------ANOMALY CLASSICAL ------ROMANTIC GREEK ------GOTHIC MIES VAN DER ROHE KARL FRIEDRICH SCHINKEL GOETHE fig. 42

90 Freedom ~ Constraint Overview from the columns suggests a freedom that is still informed by the grids con- The work of Mies van der Rohe is a straints. collision of many dualities. There is a constant struggle for freedom and One of his most successful unbuilt constraint as carried out in the idea projects that addresses this fixity and of ordered fixity and loose flow. Free- flow while playing games with the dom and constraint is a dialectic that free-plan is the Hubbe House (fig. is applicable to all previously men- 43) as it is analyzed by Peter Eisen- tioned dualities in Mies’s work(fig. man. He points out that symmetry 42). Dualities always express them- is introduced in the column grid, yet selves in terms of an element of disci- this symmetry is simultaneously re- plined control and an element break- inforced and undermined through ing that control. Therefore, freedom various other elements in the house, and constraint can be analyzed as such as furniture and partition walls. both an autonomous duality and an The fireplace that separates the din- overarching duality within which all ing room from the living room “is other dualities are nested. asymmetrical about the vertical axis of the bay but symmetrical about the The Well-Tempered Free-Plan horizontal axis.”2 The placement of the living room furnishings, dining The most predictable reading of this table, and fireplace opening under- duality is in the free-plan. In the Bar- mine one symmetry while accentuat- celona Pavilion the columns measure ing another, resulting in a complex the space evenly while the walls float acknowledgement and indifference within the zone of the grid. Flowing toward the column grid. The col- elements prevent the fixed elements umn grid is also arbitrarily present from becoming too oppressive, and and missing depending on maximized fixed elements prevent the flowing aesthetic effects (fig. 44). Eisenman ones from losing intentionality. Fur- reveals this when mentioning the one thermore, the solid stone ground ap- stray column towards the bedroom.3 pears fixed and anchored while the An extrapolation of the grid through white plaster roof appears to float. the rest of the house shows both ac- Each, in contradistinction, gives fur- knowledgment and ignorance of the ther power to the other through con- grid. The west wall of the house trast (as Tigerman states, “white is aligns with the grid, as does the solid best seen in the presence of black”).1 wall to the east of the dining room. There is only one instance where a The east wall does not, and there “free” glass wall acknowledges the are many other instances where, had symmetry of the columnar grid (the the grid been extended, the columns wall nearest the reflecting pool with would have intruded into the middle the famous Kolbe sculpture), yet the of rooms or in windows. uniformity of the spacing of free walls

Freedom ~ Constraint 91 fig. 43

HUBBE HOUSE EXISTANT COLUMNS NON-EXISTANT/ABSORBED COLUMNS fig. 44 92 Freedom ~ Constraint fig. 45

ULRICH LANGE HOUSE EXISTANT COLUMNS NON-EXISTANT/ABSORBED COLUMNS fig. 46

fig. 47 Freedom ~ Constraint 93 In the concurrent Ulrich Lange house notions of fixity (fig.48). project (fig. 45), the column grid is nearly absorbed by “freestanding” There are several examples where walls. This creates a scenario of in- structural order overpowers other cidental and isolated columns, which elements. Most of the buildings on do nothing to elucidate a unifying the IIT campus besides Crown Hall grid matrix. Mies deconstructs the are fixed within their 24-foot grid ordering grid, creating a fragmentary (fig. 49). Unlike Crown Hall or the reading of the columns and strains Farnsworth house, there are no cor- the dialectic between freedom and ner bays that protrude beyond the constraint. This creates a delightful ordered grid. The buildings thus read ambiguity. Furthermore, the barest as classically contained.* There are sketching of the grid allows the col- little, if any, elements of de Stijl or- umns to act as autonomous features dering, which Mies constantly used as in a space, rather than contributors a device to suggest infinite boundar- to a larger objectivist matrix. An ex- ies for his buildings. On the inside, trapolation of the grid reveals a close partition walls line up with the grid relationship between the placement of and therefore do not break from the walls and windows and the grid (fig. order. The walls of the lecture hall, 46). The revealed columns also have where the diagonal wall is intro- an apparent relationship with the duced, rests framed within the bays spatial flow of the house, from entry of the column grid as if it is under court through to the dining area (fig. containment, attenuating any power 47). The columns, therefore, act as it may have gained by disobeying the nodes about which flow occurs: Ele- grid. The free plan is effectively sup- ments of fixity (columns) ironically pressed. act like autonomous markers in the free plan, reversing their traditional Dynamism is allowed in these build- usage. ing in the negative space of the exterior corner detail, which helps Mies’s least successful buildings oc- dematerialize the box and allows cur when fixity and flow are in dispro- for a reading of discrete facades. portion. The Brick Country House The asymmetrical placement of the is, on first glance, his freest project classroom buildings on the site also because it lacks a limiting site or columnar structural matrix. However, the lack of columns suggests that the walls are structural, which hinders *Although one could argue that the sym- their impression of spiritual fluidity. metry of Crown Hall, regardless of its If a regularized column grid were in- inflected protruding bays beyond the pri- troduced, the walls would clearly be mary structure, keeps it classically fixed. released from any roof supporting ob- The building reads simultaneously be- ligations, and thus delivered from any tween fixed and flowing, and this irresolution gives the building power. 94 Freedom ~ Constraint fig. 48. Brick Country House Speculative Grid by ARG

fig. 49 Proposed Library and Admin. Bldg. for IIT. Freedom ~ Constraint 95 fig.50 allows for a break from the rigidity The dominance of the structural grid of the grid, although, each autono- is diffused in much of his later Amer- mous building has a structural grid ican work. The columned perimeter that regulates, rather than liberates. structure in the Post Office Building The grid is, therefore, not an order- at the Chicago Federal Center does ing background element, like at the not read as oppressively as at IIT Barcelona Pavilion, but a pervasive simply because of the immense size presence that limits movement. of glass expanses between columns, the high ceilings and the openness of To play devil’s advocate (and to em- the plan (fig. 50). The square foot- phasize that these dualities refuse print of the building does not suggest one reading), the seriality of the grid serial extendibility in the way that at IIT suggests the potential for in- the buildings at IIT do. It classically finite future extension, which (as a contains space, but the generosity of dubiously successful conception) al- that space liberates it from structural leviates the rigidity of the work. The straitjacketing. classroom buildings are both closed autonomous units, and potentially Conclusion extendable entities. The buildings could thus be understood as still Each of Mies’s buildings can be ana- maintaining de Stijl qualities without lyzed in terms of this freedom and the overhanging quotations of infini- constraint dialectic. An inhabitant tude (Crown Hall’s inflected end bays desires fixity to feel safe and con- beyond the structure). nected with the earth, and they desire 96 Freedom ~ Constraint freedom to physically break from the Bibliographical Notes: constraints of gravity. Both -- in equilibrium or tension -- are necessary to 1. Tigerman, Stanley. Versus. page give true power to architecture. Mies 146 understood these competing necessities and attempted reconciliation 2. Eisenman,Peter. Mies Reconsid- through distillation. ered. page 96.

3. ibid.

Freedom ~ Constraint 97

Conclusion of Part I: ture in the clearest possible fashion Mies van der Rohe and the and showed how far the new method Invention of Postmodernism of building could go. Through a totalized revealing of architectural es- For the study of architecture in the sence (operation between freedom twentieth century, it is pertinent to and constraint), he painted architec- study Mies van der Rohe for one rea- ture into a corner where further elab- son: distillation. The distillation prac- oration could only be labeled as a late ticed by Mies allowed architecture to style, one beyond refinement, turning touch upon its own essence and at towards indulgence, and thereby los- the same time reveal its fundamen- ing the power of an objective reveal- tal crisis: architecture cannot resolve ing of the moment’s reality.* itself from the inherently equal and opposing forces of the Apollonian and It is a supreme irony that Mies’s Dionysian. fulfillment of the Modern project created its very own dilemma. Mies The Apollonian is discipline and created the conditions for post-mod- constraint in architecture. It is that ernism simply because the market of which conforms to the laws of reality. thought perfected by Mies in his mod- The Dionysian is freedom; it rebels ern buildings no longer had materials from reality in a bid for subjective, left to mine. aesthetic, pleasure. The work of Mies is a constant back and forth between Postmodernity thus explored new and a disciplined clear structure of Apol- undervalued, even esoteric, niches of lonian constraint, which, conversely, architecture, simply because these allows for a Dionysian freedom of interstitial subjects of exploration unadulterated open space. Through were all that were left in a nearly this freedom and constraint his archi- totalized realization of a completely tecture oscillates between the two op- revealed architecture. But, postmo- posing forces. These antipodes are si- dernity also explored the crisis of multaneously present in architecture the fulfillment that Mies proposed, and are in direct conflict with each casting it into doubt, in effect slaying other. But how does the profession the dragon by removing its potency resolve itself if its fundamental na- through relativization. The objective ture exists as a paradox? project was thus exposed as a subjec-

Mies van der Rohe’s attempt at an objective reduction of architecture to * The only original progress possible to- its essential character theoretically wards any objective revealing essence is took architecture to its constructible, through a complete change in circum- material and spiritual limits, thereby stance brought on by a new epoch. This revealing “true” form in its own time. has arguably not occurred yet, but we are Mies thus defined modern architec- in transition, and thus confusion.

Conclusion to Part I. 99 tive proposition cloaked in a truth, which was itself unknowable. Once One could also interpret this duality questioned, new avenues of thought as a conflict of the material mani- were explorable. festation of spiritual objectives. It is impossible to express an idea through Crisis, contradiction, and the simul- material means, yet this is the goal taneous operation of opposing agen- of art. Art and architecture thus op- das, is revealed as the fundamental erate as allegory; they remain poor condition of architecture throughout substitutes for spiritual concepts sim- history. The architect is either cast ply because the distance between the out into oblivion forever frustrated by idea and its realization enters into its the inability to resolution, or they em- own negation. In other words, the brace the contradiction and manipu- spiritual must pass through the ma- lates it for benefit. The embrace of terial to manifest itself as an idea, contradiction is a post-modern idea but this very passing through com- that was revealed through the reduc- promises and places it no longer in a tion of architecture as it was ultimate- truly spiritual realm: it materializes ly fulfilled by Mies van der Rohe. the spirit. One could also argue that spirit can never be fully fleshless, sim- ~ ply because we would have no capac- ity to conceptualize it without some Postmodern thought was already pres- indirect material cues. ent in the contradictions that Mies’s architecture revealed through distilla- But what is architecture spiritually tion. This is confirmed by his most fa- manifesting? Is it the elusive reveal- mous idiom: Less is more. Distillation ing of essential truth as it is embod- reveals multitudes of meanings and ied in its epoch? In an age where possibilities. Less could be more clar- objectivity is ruled as difficult within ity or truth. Less could also be more a nearly totally subjectivized frame- questions that need to be answered work of vision and language, perhaps about the fundamental nature of ar- this is impossible. chitecture. The idiom suggests both a promise of grander spiritual fulfillment and a clue into deeper, previously masked, problems at the core of architecture. The problem reveals itself in the contradiction of the Apol- lonian and Dionysian battle. If these are irresolvable, then architecture as an art will always compromise its fundamental principles simply because its fundamental principles operate in an antimonious “bound duality.”

100 Conclusion to Part I. Conclusion to Part I. 101 102 Part II: Mies after Mies

..you don’t know how the others strive To paint a little thing like that you smeared Carelessly passing with your robes afloat,- Yet do much less, so much less, Someone says, (I know his name, no matter)-so much less! Well, less is more, Lucrezia: I am judged.

Robert Browning, The Faultless Painter 1855.

Less is More. Mies van der Rohe

Less is a bore. Robert Venturi

More is more. Rem Koolhaas

Yes is more. BIG

103 104 Introduction Introduction emphasized (due to various agendas). As Rosalind Krauss points out,1 schol- History tends to kill nuance. In a ars also began looking at the build- thousand years -- though unimagina- ings differently: instead of focusing ble to us now -- the various modalities on the perfection of platonic forms of twentieth century architecture may they analyzed phenomenological ef- prove hard to distinguish. The archi- fects in specific contexts, contingent tecture of Mies van der Rohe is so- upon subject and play of light. This phisticated and nuanced. He is time- complexification ironically postmod- less and universally communicative ernized Mies, and cleared the way on one level, and tied to a very spe- for a positive reintroduction of him in cific episteme on another: Specificity practice. Unfortunately, the incorpo- is easily forgotten and universality is ration of Mies into the contemporary easily simplified. His architecture is, scene has suffered from an isolation- therefore, susceptible to future his- ist reduction of one or two facets of torical reductivism. his work. The lessons of the 80’s and 90’s historians were perhaps learned Mies’s death in 1969 roughly coin- but not fully absorbed. It is possible cided with both the peak of his influ- enough time has gone by and the ence and the hinge-point of popular nuance-killing nature of history is al- dissent. Mies in the hands of popu- ready starting its work. lists (whom caught widespread attention by the early 80’s) such as Charles Mies will remain a part of architec- Jencks, Stanley Tigerman and Tom ture for as long as the profession ex- Wolfe, pilloried Mies and displayed ists, but the passage of time risks a him in the town square as a lesson of leveling of the way he is perceived, what not to do. His followers faired resulting in a simplified extraction even worse, creating often-clumsy of his principles. The phrase “Less is imitations of the Miesian model, be- More” (impressionable to multiple in- cause the facts of Mies were retained terpretations), will likely survive pos- but not the poetics. terity, yet others, such as “Form is not the goal, but the result of our work”, Beginning with a comprehensive bi- may not. The convenient packaging ography by Franz Schulze there was of his aphorisms does little to prevent a slackening of this reductive view abuse. of Mies. The work of historians and theoreticians in the late 80’s and 90’s Nevertheless, Mies’s architecture cre- painted Mies in a humanist manner, ates multitudes within its simplicity. finding many subtle complexities and His refined architecture potentially contradictions. They analyzed his per- represents all things to all facets of sonal life, relationships, philosophical discourse, past or present. A histori- readings, and various idiosyncratic an may fit him into nearly any of the obsessions that were previously de- compartmentalized “isms” and styles

Introduction 105 of history. Colin Rowe found Palla- 1. Less is a bore. The Postmodern dio in his work. Mies out-de Stijled Critique from the 1960’s-Today. de Stijl at the Brick Country House. When compared, for example, to a The first era of Mies after Mies is the Romanesque Church Mies becomes birth of the postmodern era, a rejec- both Gothic and High-Tech. When tion of many of the positivist utopian, compared to the Baroque, his work and ideological components of mod- may evoke a Romanesque barren- ernism. The architecture of Mies ness. His architecture is stylistically stands as the most comprehensive multivalent, and thus constantly at representative of the modern move- potential of reevaluation or risk of ment. Robert Venturi bemoans the reduction. simple in his book Complexity and Contradiction, proposing instead an An analysis in further detail of Mies embrace of the complex nature of after Mies will reveal the multiplicity architecture, and a move away from of Mies. He operated in dualities, platonic idealism towards an accep- but dualities accumulate to such a tance of the compromises of the real degree the system reappears as mul- world placed upon designers. Many tiplicities. Therefore, this is not an populist gentleman architects/critics abandonment of duality, but a look at contributed to a mass revolt against the ways in which duality manifests it- what they believed were the played self in multiple ways through the lens out conventions of modernism. of his critics.

The only appropriate method to tack- le postmodernism is to focus on individual architects as they react to Mies. This is because each architect in the postmodern era has wildly differing agendas, approaches, criticisms and priorities. I am not including those architects whose work is a positive response to Mies, such as: Renzo Pi- ano, Peter Zumthor, Norman Foster or Tadao Ando. The critics of Mies teach us more by problematizing his work. The chapter on Venturi is disproportionately large because it was the first major critique of the Modernist movement (and by default Mies), and the one that addresses dualities most fully.

106 Introduction a. Robert Venturi Selected Chapters:

Introduction 2. “Complexity and Contradiction Vs. Simplification Robert Venturi’s seminal book of or Picturesqueness” 1966, Complexity and Contradic- tion in Architecture, is regarded as Venturi states that modernity is mo- a watershed in the battle against tivated by a desire to discover clarity modern architecture. His post- and reduce ambiguity. He suggests modern method embraced inclusion, this motivation is inherently flawed. irresolution, and conflict as positive Where modernists attempted to re- elements of design. With his playful solve dualities, the postmodernist indictment of Mies van der Rohe in cynically exploits the unresolved. The the famous phrase “less is a bore”2, Apollonian/modernist objective of Venturi amassed many followers who arrival and repose thus slips into the declared a revolt against Modernism, Dionysian/postmodern condition of and placed Mies at the center of the searching and tension. In the unify- pyre. However, upon a careful reading goal of expressing pure industrial ing, Venturi’s book demonstrates a zeitgeist, the modernist’s aims were true reverence for Mies’s work. Mies’s focused. Postmodernity uncovered distillation allowed (both intention- cracks in this unity, which subse- ally and circumstantially) a clear view quently led to the fall of Babel. This of inherent, and perhaps irresolvable, toppling created the diaspora of view- dualities within architecture. Such points in the 70’s and onwards. dualities are explored in Complex- ity and Contradiction, manifested as Venturi acknowledges that an effec- both a “tension and balance.”3 tive simplicity must stem from the knowledge of inherent complexity.4 An analysis of selected chapters of A skilled architect sifts through the Venturi’s book, including relevant ex- mud in order to create unity out of amples from Mies, shows complexity disparate elements. Many historical and contradiction are present in the examples Venturi cites as complex work of this canonized modernist. are (in comparison to the raw data This inclusion blurs and enriches the of design) ordered solutions to an borders between modern and post- intricate ocean of external contradic- modern. tory pressures. Design legibility will always require much exclusion.

He rightly bemoans both false minimalism and false complexity. False minimalism refuses to acknowledge underlying complex issues. False complexity willfully introduces elements,

1a. Robert Venturi 107 outside of necessity, that further confuse design. However, Venturi’s own work seemingly abounds in attempts at false complexity. The circumstantial and humanizing quirks that he finds in the architecture of the past is synthesized in his work. But the willful is not the circumstantial; Ven- turi’s architecture, therefore, doesn’t ring true (fig. 1). fig.1

4. “Contradictory Levels: The 5. “The Double-Functioning Phenomenon of “Both-And” in Element” Architecture” Venturi criticizes modernity for creat- Venturi’s direct criticism of modern ing a generic language that addresses architecture relating to an “either-or” many functions, rather than one that tradition of exclusion simply isn’t ap- emphasizes discrete programs. He plicable to Mies’s work. Postmodern- uses Mies’s skyscraper facades as an ists reduced Mies down to his bare el- example of programmatic universal- ements. He is labeled a pragmatist, ity, invariant to functional difference. and “reductivism” is used over the Venturi makes some clear errors in more generous word, “distillation”. judging the Seagram Building in this However, his architecture is often way: “both-and”, and an analysis of duality in his work (as done earlier in part I) Mies’s and Johnson’s Seagram Build- is proof of this. Moreover, Mies was ing excludes functions other than of- aware and exploitive of these duali- fices (except on the ground floor in ties. Glass is both revealing and ob- back), and by using a similar wall pat- fuscating. Factory direct rolled steel tern camouflages the fact that at the details are both ornament and ex- top there is a different kind of space pression. His open flexible pavilions for mechanical systems.6 are both programmatically open and unaccommodating. Skyscraper pla- Obviously this critique is flawed. He zas are both gestures of engagement contradicts himself immediately when and separation from the city (as are making a concession to the accommo- his plinths). Details both articulate dation of program in the ground floor a facade up close and bind a unified and back of the house. He is also form from a distance. As Colin Rowe wrong about the mechanical floors: points out,5 Crown Hall is both hier- they are clearly different from the archical (a la Palladio) and de-center- floors below because they don’t incor- ing. porate the glass or floor-plates. One could criticize the continuation of the

108 1a. Robert Venturi vertical I-beams as ornamentation, but this is a logical aesthetic move. As another counter, Mies expresses alternative program in a sketch of the Chicago Federal Center by lengthen- ing, and exposing on the facade, the floor heights at the levels of the courthouse (fig. 2).

Venturi defines the double-functioning element as a detail or part of a building that serves multiple purposes.7 It is, therefore, not totally prescribed. The double-functioning element suggests something beyond pure essence; a stated goal of machine age modernists. However, Mies’s architecture of distillation required both excess and concealing in order to reveal aesthet- fig.2 ic clarity. In his work there is excess in the material sumptuousness and from orderliness and clarity: ornamental detailing, and concealing in the suppression of shear bracing Meaning can be enhanced by break- and mechanical systems. These ad- ing the order; the exception points up justments demonstrate the priority of the rule. A building with no “imper- visual clarity over puritanical truth. fect” part can have no perfect part, because contrast supports meaning.9 Venturi directly praises Mies for his use of the I-Beam as a double-func- As a literal critique: architecture is tioning rhetorical element (decora- never totally perfect no matter what tion that reifies the process or intent the goal of the architect is. All build- 8 of the building). This acknowledge- ings are complex results of circum- ment of complexity in the work of stance. But an intentional self-con- Mies dismantles the simplistic myth scious break from order often reads that Venturi’s book is a revolt against as a transparent gimmick. These modern architecture. Modernity and breaks from the rule must occur nat- postmodernity blur together in these urally and over time, otherwise they moments of inclusion. risk a failed potency.10

6. “The Conventional Element” As for the idea that “contrast supports meaning,” contrast can, and Venturi introduces the conventional most often, occurs outside of the ar- element as something that breaks chitecture. A building is in contrast 1a. Robert Venturi 109 with the immediate: context, traffic, ture, while the buildings reinforce the trees, and people, with their fashions whimsical freedom afforded to sculp- and movement. People animate archi- ture (fig. 3). The contrast heightens tecture; architecture cannot perform the innate qualities of the differing that way by itself. Architecture is fur- arts and gives them renewed power. ther transformed by the phenomena Clusters of citizens, on the plaza and of changing light patterns from day silhouetted in the windows, give life to night, which constantly modulates to the building. Occupants and sculp- shadows and transparency. Mies also ture are ultimately the “artful discord used sculpture as this, “contrast that [that] gives vitality to architecture.”11 supports meaning.” Calder’s Flamin- go in the Chicago Federal Center Pla- Venturi’s critique of the mundane el- za reifies the orderliness of architec- ement is valid when applied to Mies’s architecture. Venturi states that “Our buildings must survive the cigarette machine,”12 and this is sadly not true for Mies, as is jarringly demonstrated in a photograph of a barber- shop in the old student building at IIT before OMA’s addition (fig. 4). This stripping down of architecture to the point that any foreign element is a threat to aesthetic intent is called to attention through the de-concealment Mies’s architecture provides: Less reveals more problems. fig.4 fig.3

110 1a. Robert Venturi fig.5 7. “Contradiction Adapted” aesthetically violent and bulky. It also restricts views and spaces. In his comparison between the Sea- gram Building and Kahn and Tyng’s Exceptional conditions in Mies’s ar- project for a tower in Philadelphia, chitecture are often expressed, but Venturi contradicts himself, but not absorbed --through resolution-- into in a good way.13 At first he criticizes the larger whole. The regularized but modernism for operating too long gently curved plan of the Reichsbank under rigid rectangular floor plates. project is an ordered solution to con- Kahn states, the Seagram Building textual circumstance (fig. 5). Simi- “hides its corsets” by suppressing larly, the addition to the Houston shear bracing. Venturi then points Museum of Fine Arts gently curves to out that Kahn’s glorification of trian- allow a connection flanked by the two gulation renders vertical circulation angled wings of the old building. He or occupiable floor space difficult. In creates order out of exceptional cir- one paragraph Venturi reverses his cumstance, rather than exploiting the argument, and ends up dismissing exceptional, like Venturi would. his counter-example. Rectangular spaces and floor plates are not lim- 8. “Contradiction Juxtaposed” iting; they accommodate the most versatile space for any program. The This chapter discusses jarring con- expression of shear bracing is often trasts between order and compro- 1a. Robert Venturi 111 mise. Violent adjacencies occur in Mies’s early revolutionary work not within the architecture, but outside it, in the contrast between building and context. Few instances in architectural history show as aggressive a contrast as the one between the Glass Skyscraper project and its immediate ‘traditional’ surroundings (Gehry at Bilbao is a comparable instance). Similar effects of difference on site occur throughout most of his career: fig.6 the Reichsbank, IIT and its urban edges, and the Lake Shore Drive Apartments all have a contradictory relationship with their surroundings. Of course, when modernism caught up with Mies, and glass skyscraper imitations went up everywhere, the novelty of a crystalline tower among dank stone neighbors vanished.*

9. “The Inside and the Outside”

Here Venturi criticizes the recently liberated dialogue between inside and out initiated by modernism, and, instead, stresses the differences. He argues, in the end, that the “inside is different from the outside,”14 and the exploitation of difference creates powerful tension. He espouses an ordered facade that conceals interior complexity, similar to a geode’s inner crystals. The “crowded intricacies within a rigid frame,”15 as discussed in the example of the Villa Savoye feels arbitrary considering similar things occur in many other modern- *In an ironic twist, when the whimsical ist precedents. The high brick walls and heavy stone clad AT&T tower by of Mies’s courtyard house projects Philip Johnson was built it looked like a hide an otherwise glass walled house. violent contrast next to its serious neigh- This is due to the need for privacy in bors of steel and glass (fig. 6).

112 1a. Robert Venturi fig.8 Mies (left), Venturi (right) an urban residence. Mies doesn’t pur- sue stark differences that contrast in- And why shouldn’t our architecture side and outside where not required; remain opened to nature when priva- his architecture is unconcerned with cy is not a concern? Venturi mentions novel surprises. The interior of the that the foundations of architecture Farnsworth House is revealed out- were due to fortification for military side because it is detached from an protection,16 however, he fails to ac- exposed urban environment. Privacy knowledge that the openness of “glass is afforded through arboreal remote- houses” (even if they are ultimately ness. utopian) might indicate a healthy and peaceful democracy. Allusion to for- However, revealed interior on the ex- tification reintroduces fear into dis- terior through the heavy use of glass course. does not equalize inside and out. Out- side, the house barely registers within Venturi endorses a disconnection be- the overwhelming visual, aural and tween exterior shell and interior ar- olfactory stimulus of the surround- ticulated space, which, he contends, ing context. The glass reflects the enriches space, creates difference and trees, river and sky, further negating allows for dynamic interstitial circula- the houses presence. Inside, nature tion spaces on the interior. This oc- is framed and captured in silence curs multiple times in the works of behind the glass, which flattens and Mies van der Rohe, particularly in his reduces nature to a saturated visual open pavilions. His famous Concert sensation. Any expectation of the in- Hall project collage of 1942 shows terior as revealed on the exterior is a complete separation from outside quashed when nature is framed on factory scale shell, and interior curvi- the inside in this fashion. “Inside is linear auditorium (fig. 7). This theme different from the outside.” is carried out further in his project 1a. Robert Venturi 113 for the National Theatre in Manheim, ity only occurs through a permeability and the famous sketch of an audito- between the container and contained rium, simply showing a square with a object: squiggly shape hovering on the inside. This sketch is eerily similar to Sketch The ‘utility core’ of Mies or early D in Venturi’s plan diagrams for this Johnson is not relevant because it be- chapter17(fig. 8). comes a passive accent in a dominant open space, rather than an active par- Venturi would counter this defense of allel to another perimeter.18 Mies by saying that an effective dual- fig.7

114 1a. Robert Venturi Yet permeability occurs in the concert would call “bad spaces”).19 Whether hall project collage. It also occurs in Venturi would classify the dining wall the semicircular dining niche at the as an accent does little to diminish Tugendhadt House: the niche simulta- the experiential ambiguity it creates neously expresses enclosure and em- between inside and outside. brace due to the large missing portion of the cylindrical shape. This cylinder, Venturi also quips that the Seagram inserted in the columnar grid of the building ignores the city by detaching free plan, creates numerous inciden- from it as an autonomous object: “-the tal poche spaces (what Louis Kahn building which is an isolated pavilion

1a. Robert Venturi 115 rather than one which reinforces the whether it is from the plaza side or street line has become the norm.”20 the street side. Effectively, a lack of However, as K. Michael Hays points frontality does not prevent the build- out,21 the Seagram Building is not ing from participating in an interest- simply an autonomous removed ele- ing, complex or engaged relationship ment from the city. Its retreat from with the city. On the contrary, this the street edge both detaches and frontal ambiguity suggests complexity invites the city in. The creation of and contradiction. outdoor space in the plaza allows a moment of repose in the solid wall of 10. “The Obligation Toward the skyscrapers. This encourages social Difficult Whole” gathering, which is the opposite of disengagement. Therefore, discon- Renaissance and Baroque Unity: nection from the city, strategically considered, can create connections. Venturi describes the “difficult whole” The Seagram also has a clear front as those buildings that create unity and a back on the ground level where through inclusion rather than exclu- it most counts (in the same regard sion. In this chapter he is describing as Venturi’s example of the PSFS (in Wölfflin’s terms) the multiple uni- building).22 As they ascend upwards, ty of the Renaissance and the unified why do skyscrapers need a front/back unity of the Baroque. 23 difference like Venturi suggests? They are not encumbered by a need But an architecture of complexity and for literal urban connection; they are contradiction also embraces the ‘dif- detached from those constraints when ficult’ numbers of parts—the duality, they rise above the street. A com- and the medium degrees of multi- parison of skyscrapers with Baroque plicity...this is an architecture which low-rise buildings simply lacks valid- exploits the duality, and more or less ity. Most bell towers (those elements resolves dualities into a whole.24 most akin to proto-skyscrapers) yield undifferentiated facades on all four sides, including many examples Ven- The exploitation of duality operates turi uses in this chapter. between peaceful resolution and/ or unresolved tension. Resolution as This front and back on the ground a goal is not different from the goal floor at Seagram’s is rare for a Mies of modernism. Tension through the skyscraper. Frontality is relative in unresolved is the apparent desire of most of his towers. His usual configu- postmodernists (but perhaps of a lat- ration, such as at the Federal Center er ilk, i.e. Eisenman in the 80’s), but in Chicago, is to place towers around Venturi, surprisingly, is concerned a plaza. Depending on approach and with unity here. He wants the dual- entry to the buildings, the front facade ity to remain resolved. He wants Ba- becomes the one first encountered, roque unity over Renaissance unity.

116 1a. Robert Venturi structure. These extra bays are only resolved when reading the whole. When isolated they are without aesthetic (and rational) logic. The same thing occurs with the cantilevered bays on the two ends of the framing structure at the Farnsworth House. It is also evident in the off-shooting mi- nor roof bays of the Berlin National Gallery, the Cantor Drive-In Project, and a dramatic early iteration of the Federal Savings and Loan Associa- tion of Des Moines (fig.10).

At the Berlin National Gallery Mies would argue the cantilevering bays were an optimization of structure. Yet, at Crown Hall and the Farns- worth House, rationalism cannot ex- fig.9 plain the outer bays, which reach beyond the primary structure. Clearly, The rest of the chapter defines dual- aesthetic effects in service to overall ity simplistically, merely referring to a unity were the primary goals. This facade, plan, or work of art that is lit- reveals the work is biased by a subjec- erally split down the middle. This lim- tive auteurism. its his examples more or less to the play of symmetry. Citing Sullivan’s Granted, these examples lack the Farmers’ and Merchants’ Union Bank multiple unity of Baroque as Ven- (fig.9), he states that the bilateral du- turi’s examples show, but they are not ality of the entrance is resolved in the without inflection. These inflected upper arch, creating unity through touches contribute to a complex read- difference.25 But is it resolved or in ing between parts and the whole. tension or is it both, simultaneously? The Problem of Asymmetry: Venturi introduces the term “inflection” to describe an element in a Venturi barely mentions how unity building that contributes to the sym- is created through asymmetry. In metry of the “difficult whole,” but describing Gaudi’s garish dressing when isolated is asymmetrical and de- table at Casa Guell, he merely states pendent upon the rest to create unity. that asymmetry is a series of hyper Of course Mies van der Rohe did this inflections that (subjectively?) create constantly in his symmetrical build- unity.26 If the rules of asymmetry are ings. Crown Hall has minor flank- found in a consistency of intention, ing outer bays that project beyond the 1a. Robert Venturi 117 fig.10 Federal Savings and Loan Project by MvdR. (Flanking bay inflections)

fig.10 Fire Station No. 4 by Robert Venturi. (Flanking bay inflections)

118 1a. Robert Venturi as being uninflected in elevation (a move the writer makes that -- with the abrupt switch to a smaller scale -- seems to come from nowhere)27 why doesn’t he mention the inflection of all the other parts in the free plan?

The Tugendhadt house is also a good example to apply to Venturi’s reading of the Modena Cathedral. He states that at the cathedral a “formal dis- continuity is implied where there is structural continuity.”28 The photograph shows asymmetrical placement fig.11 Spot the missing wall. of elements (motivated by program) measured against a continuous structure. This is the same as the rela- and a sum-total balance that occurs tionship at the Tugendhadt House when all parts are together, then one between the free plan and the consis- missing part would effectively suggest tent column grid. disunity. This is easy to spot in symmetrical compositions: if any part is As for non-architectural elements, missing, the symmetry, and thus the Venturi, in analyzing Soane’s Gate- unity, is broken. way, points out sculpture as the inflected element that creates unity.29 So, in what ways do Mies’s early de The Barcelona Chair can act as an Stijl plan compositions hold up to the inflected object in the architectural concept of unity and inflection? All field. In Mies’s interiors, all furniture parts in an asymmetrical composition elements are carefully placed, and would technically inflect towards the contribute to an elusive whole. The greater whole, but how is the whole lush leather and sensual forms con- judged as complete? It is a highly trast with the cold, orthogonal space. subjective opinion in this case. The Even if the Barcelona Chair is in it- walls of the Brick Country House and self complete and uninflected, it feels the Barcelona Pavilion become the el- more complete when it is paired with ements of inflection that reflect the another. (This is by far the most com- totalized form. When one removes mon way the chair is grouped). Thus even a single wall, does that reflect the chair’s pairing is similar to Ven- poorly on the whole (fig. 11)? turi’s example of the twin churches at the Piazza del Popolo30 (fig.12). Do the asymmetrical wall partitions in Crown Hall act as inflections to the symmetrical whole? When Venturi criticizes the Tugendhadt columns 1a. Robert Venturi 119 fig.12

Context Inflection in Mies’s Sky- are also inflected elements within the scrapers: larger fabric of the city. Their urban placement is contextualized by the Venturi briefly describes Frank Lloyd framing effect of the clearing plaza. Wright’s Unity Temple as “devoid of Without the aid of total symmetry inflection unless the directional en- (the Seagram plaza being the only trance is one.”31 A similar condition example of a high-rise with a sym- occurs with the connecting canopy metrical plaza), the larger whole is bridge at Lake Shore Drive (fig. 13). only subjectively definable. These skyscrapers are autonomously resolved in symmetry, yet the elusive Venturi is at fault in this chapter in whole is only achieved through their proposing that multiple unity, as it asymmetrical relationship with each pertains to Renaissance thought, is other on the site. The connecting not complex and contradictory. It is canopy reinforces this reading. (If the complex in the same ways that Ba- towers stood alone, like the Promon- roque inflection is complex. Arguably tory Tower, then they would become it is more complex, because in non- too oppressively resolved). Mies’s baroque aesthetics unities become later noteworthy skyscraper projects nested within other unities. Baroque (including the Toronto Dominion unity only allows one reading of the Center, the Chicago Federal Center, whole at one scale. Otherwise the and Westmount Square) repeat this parts are disparate. pattern of symmetrical towers placed asymmetrically on the site. Venturi describes the Piazza Del Popolo as “complete at the level of At the Chicago Federal Center, the program but incomplete in the ex- towers are of different proportions pression of form.”32 A Renaissance and heights, and are further inflected approach would reword this as, “com- by the low post office pavilion. They plete at the level of program, and 120 1a. Robert Venturi fig.13 complete in the expression of form.” the result of our work.” Venturi is This allows for unity to jump scales. also against willful complexity, saying it “represents a new formalism.”33 Exclusions and inclusions occur in This analysis of Venturi and Mies re- all architecture. It is not possible to veals that complexity never departed suggest that architecture attempting from architecture. In fact, Mies’s inclusion is not also blatantly reject- distilled forms brought attention to ing certain elements of its environ- many problems previously hiding be- ment when trying to achieve unity. hind the fleshier forms of the past. Unified unity and multiple unity both strive for completeness. The differ- Complexity has rarely been the intent ence between them is subordinate to of architecture through history. Many their similarities. It is only relatively of the historical examples Venturi recently, through the emergence of cites create complexity only circum- deconstructivism, that unity is chal- stantially, not through the architect’s lenged as the end-game. intention. As human beings, we like the fallibility of buildings. We like Conclusion to Robert Venturi: quirky eccentricities that give architecture a sense of belonging in the “[Complexity of] form is not the world. But to gain authenticity these goal, but the result of our work.“ things must occur by chance, and often over long periods of time. Only Willful complexity is artificial com- during postmodernity has willful ir- plexity. A building that attempts to resolution and fabricated complexity resolve dualities will already contain emerged in an attempt to reflect a myriad complexities whether or not cynical state of mind. The reintroduc- this is the intended outcome. To tion of forceful, reconstituted, and modify a famous Mies quote: “[Com- re-scaled symbolism (as something plexity of] form is not the goal, but missing from modernism) is at best 1a. Robert Venturi 121 superficial, and at worst, meaning- discourse to address the contradic- less. tory dualities still present in design, and to exploit them in resolution or If architects strive to resolve dual- irresolution. ity while acknowledging that the to- talization of this task is impossible (and this is why we cannot return to modernism), they acknowledge that dualities manifest themselves in resolution and irresolution. Resolution of duality leads to peace, irresolution to tension. This is the duality of the duality.

These are both desired outcomes of architecture. They can occur simultaneously or separately. Modernists (or better yet, Apollonians) suppressed unresolved problems, while postmodernists (Dionysians) repressed resolution. A new method of design attempts to create a foundation for dynamic tensions to bloom, without shunning the obligation towards resolution as it is revealed in a certain time and place. This is a concession to chaos within the ambition of order.*

At present architecture is no longer as regimented as it was during modernity nor as playful as it was during postmodernity. Complex issues of cul- ture, globalization, computer technol- *Most architects today are still attempt- ogy and sustainability are adding new ing resolution. Aside from Rem Koolhaas, pieces into the puzzle of discourse. the norm for architecture is connectivity But the breadth of method is perhaps and cross-disciplinary mingling, all moti- more limited than we think. vations that seek resolutions. Parametri- cism is literally about resolving one com- Discourse arrives at the intersection plex geometry with another. But these between means and theory. Prevalent new interests largely shun duality, because they are looking for monist solutions that ideas and technology limit as much as ignore the inherently dualistic nature of they liberate. It is important for the design. 122 1a. Robert Venturi b. Charles Jencks

Charles Jencks, after lamenting the absolutist doctrine of Modernity, declares its absolute death (with the destruction of Pruitt Igoe)34 and the ab- solutism of postmodernity. (Of course, the irony is not lost in this statement.) Consequently, his texts from the 80’s today issue guffaws in the reader. Postmodernity as interpreted by its more sensitive proponents attempted to sidestep any totalizing thesis for design. The new movement was, after all (according to Venturi), about the underdog, the marginalized, the humbled, and the imperfect. Yet this age is also about fierce subjectivity. Humble and flamboyant views stand side by side in the postmodern era. fig.14

Jenck’s own, mostly forgotten, work fails to fall within the category of hu- mility. It is stuffy, derivative, uncom- plicated, conservative, and absolute in its doctrine. Many of his critiques against Mies are applicable to his own theories and works. No room in Jencks Thematic House (fig. 14) can “survive the cigarette machine,”35 let alone the bathroom duct he says ruins Mies’s Lafayette Park townhouses.36

He’s created an absolute environment completely lacking any room for inclusion. He berates Mies’s work at IIT for misusing or neglecting the symbolic potentialities of the work, yet his own symbolism at the Thematic House is supremely shallow and not necessarily indicative of the domestic. When Jencks mislabels functions at IIT based on arbitrary symbolic cues,

1b. Charles Jencks 123 one could just as easily call Jencks’s servative rehashing of classicist mo- living room a bank, church lobby, or tifs, meant to reintroduce decorum private corporate office. His argu- within typological difference. ment for cogent symbolism, therefore, does not translate well in his One of Jencks’s only compliments of own work. Mies is of the Farnsworth House. He argues it is the one building where As a postmodernist he is arguing a the I-Beam is pure structure rather fiercely subjective viewpoint tempered than decoration: only by personal interest, and leery of any attempt at objectivity. The work ...these planes are actually held in resembles fashion, not architecture, place by what appears to hold them in through the recycling of classical and place: in most Mies architecture the art deco motifs. His work therefore I-beams are ‘symbols’ for structure has a short shelf live. Unfortunately or ‘make visible’ the structure rather architecture lasts longer than fash- than being actually the thing itself.40 ion (it is much easier and cheaper to throw a garment away than a build- How odd that honesty and a rejection ing). of symbolism are Jencks’s only com- pliment of Mies (Not to mention the His critique of Mies is indicative of evocation of Kant!). In his own 80’s a preoccupation with issues of archi- work, of course, decoration super- tectural semantics and semiotics in sedes honesty. The decoration is not the 1960’s and 70’s. His analysis of even evocative of a structural expres- the IIT buildings as lacking in sym- siveness. bolic cogency is today looked upon as rather silly (because the work is such In short, Jencks complaints against an absorbed part of the canon of ar- Mies are at every turn valid on a su- chitectural history these miscommu- perficial level, but they completely ig- nications rarely occur). He calls the nore the complexity of: light phenom- boiler house at IIT the symbolic ca- ena, historical allusions, decorations, thedral, the chapel the boiler house, contextualities and contradictions and Crown Hall the President’s Tem- present and intended by Mies in his ple.37 He argued there is a discon- built work. nect in the use of “factory building” language for educational uses.38 He questioned the same language of curtain wall utilized for both offices and residential towers.39 This he labeled “univalent form.”

His counterproposal to this apparent dearth of symbolism is a highly con-

124 1a. Robert Venturi fig.15 1c. Stanley Tigerman 125 c. Stanley Tigerman a contributor, and his restlessness in conforming to handed down prin- Stanley Tigerman’s most famous ciples led him to reject the Miesian blow against Mies is his “Titanic” model. In his text, Versus, he breaks collage of 1978 (fig. 15). Here he his career down into multiple phases shows Crown Hall sinking into a calm to show his pluralistic approach to ocean, a symbol for the deflation and building. This is meant as an anti- death of the doctrines of modernism. manifesto, one that celebrates diver- This rejection of Mies was a long pro- sity over a singular methodology. He cess with Tigerman, who practiced is also an advocate for the fiercely as a clunky Miesian modernist for subjective , injecting his religious be- nearly 25 years before making the liefs and love for the whimsically sur- collage. Tigerman’s may have sensed realistic in his work in order to both a sea change in the profession and brand and deflate it. His subjectivity exploited it for business reasons. The was successful in the sense that it ef- collage stuck, and has survived to this fectively created architecture of non- day as a symbol of the death of Mod- posterity: Today his work of the 80’s ernism. is mostly forgotten.

Tigerman’s rejection is one borne of Duality is one of Tigerman’s major deep conflict. He wrote a posthumous themes, although he fails to see all letter to Mies in 197841 stating, first the complex dualities present in the of all, that he missed him. He then work of Mies. Tigerman’s use of du- regaled Mies of all the changes that ality is rarely an intrinsic part of his have occurred since his death. These design like they were in Mies’s build- include: the thriving copycat practices ings: instead they were shown as for- like SOM, the hyperbole of high-tech malistic applied ornamental symbols. as practiced by (early) Helmut Jahn, In his Baha’i Temple project of 1982 the emergence of Post-modernism, (fig.16), he literally replicates the and Thomas Beeby’s infiltration of shape of the building in the adjacent IIT. In his second letter eight years trees as a commentary on the duality later42 he updates Mies on the fractur- between nature and architecture. ing of his Chicago Modernist dynasty and the full immersion of postmoder- A comparison between this gesture nity into practice. He also bemoans and the tangled old Oak in front of Franz Schulze’s biography in its sug- the Farnsworth House demonstrates gestion that Mies was a mere mortal. Mies was able to address this dual- Tigerman is not ready to consider the ity intrinsically: His architecture of complexities of Mies; he prefers Mies otherness frames nature. Tigerman’s the god. attempt to connect interior with exterior is to paint a partly cloudy sky Tigerman’s dislike of the Mies’s on the ceiling (fig. 17). At the Farn- copycats, of whom he was originally sworth House, a white ceiling, trav-

126 1c. Stanley Tigerman fig.16

fig.17 1c. Stanley Tigerman 127 ertine floors and heavy use of glass a dialectic in irresolution is more ef- literally (not symbolically) absorbs the fective than one in resolution (reso- colors of nature. The intrinsic meth- lution he states as being the goal of od is always a more nuanced, subtle, Modernism). He states “black is best and lasting way to address dualities. seen in the presence of white”43 as a Literal symbolism is not necessary metaphor for the strengthening ten- in exploiting dualities. It even risks sion of extreme contrast. However, turning these complex relationships these contrasts were exploited in into cheap gimmicks (a desired result Mies (as demonstrated in the inter- of postmodern irony). play between his buildings and sculpture) with more grace and effective- In his writings, Tigerman diverges ness than in the work of Tigerman. from Venturi when he proposes that fig.16 Baha’i Temple project model.

128 1c. Stanley Tigerman 2: More is More: Other a. Rem Koolhaas Postmodern Responses (Second Wave Postmodernism) The architecture of Rem Koolhaas is supremely postmodern in that it ob- Many other architects in the second sesses over inclusion, hegemony, and wave of Postmodernity showed an surrealism. His architecture never opinion of Mies not necessarily in writ- makes its mind up or sits still. The ten form but through their works. A offhanded use of materials is a direct common theme in these non-Miesian commentary against the careful de- architects is the use of fierce subjec- tailing of Mies and contemporaries tivity, non-rationalist structure, ultra- such as Norman Foster and Renzo contextuality (thus non-Platonic), and Piano. Rem is not interested in the the use of color. Surrealism is also a slow revealing of form or zeitgeist but heavy influence on postmodern archi- the quick flash of discovery. To make tects. Gehry, Koolhaas, and Eisen- a cinematic metaphor (considering man have all shown the influence of Rem was an aspiring filmmaker), the absurd, the subconscious, and Mies is akin to Tarkovsky, while Rem the falsely symbolic in their work to is Fellini. counter their perception of Miesian modernists as serious literalists. The This offhanded use of materiality is main thesis of this era in architecture oddly appropriate at the McCormick is the multivalent approach and the Tribune Campus Center he designed differing priorities of its practitio- at IIT (fig. 18). This project swal- ners. lows the modest Commons Building fig.18

2a. Rem Koolhaas 129 by Mies that once sat isolated in a campus by SOM. With their clunky parking lot block located between the proportions they totally destroy the proper campus and Mies designed harmonic relationships between the student housing. Rem’s addition is Mies designed buildings on campus. designed in every way as a contrast to the Miesian model. This creates Rem uses hegemonic: programs, a dialectic between the two buildings spatial configurations, angles, col- that strengthens the power of each. ors, textures, graphics and surfaces As Rem states, “Mies needs to be to completely contrast the limited protected from his defenders.”44 Had, palette of the Commons Building. for example, Renzo Piano designed a His indifference to the connection graceful, well-detailed glass box an- between the Mies building and his nexed to the commons, the dialogue own is intentionally non-graceful and would read inappropriately homog- demonstrates an almost no-contest enous. To prove this point, look at conciliatory tone (fig. 19). In other the poor Miesian copycats on the IIT words, the crude detailing, unclear fig.19

130 2a. Rem Koolhaas structural diagram and artificial use of patterning draws attention to the immaculate detailing, structural clarity, and honestly expressed materiality of Mies (echoing Tigerman again, “white is best in the presence of black”).

Rem bends the project downward at fig.20 the point that the train tunnel inter- sects the building. This is another cism that architecture must “survive commentary on Mies, showing that the cigarette machine.” Certainly in the exception doesn’t make the rule, a landscape of difference, the pres- as occurs in the sizing of the girders ence of any intrusion, be it a soda ma- at Crown Hall. Instead the exception chine, garbage can, or Caution Wet is exploited as such, and disrupts and Floor sign, fail to disrupt the archi- ideally consistent roofline. tectural affect. Crown Hall tolerates these alien intruders only in the solid There is also a heavy debt to graphic lower depths of its basement. iconography and a desire (but dis- belief) in the symbolic power of ar- Rem’s addition is a dualistic device chitecture. Mies himself is literally that draws attention to differences be- projected onto the cheap aluminum tween the two projects. It comments orange glass facade that faces the both on the shortcomings of Mies’s street and campus. Endless icons rep- platonic spiritual ideal and the inabil- resent examples of activity present at ity of current practice to demonstrate the student center (fig. 20). This ex- such perfect rigor. Rem casts himself tra dimension to the building echoes as an outsider to the profession, a Jencks’s critique of Mies’s campus Warholian voyeur that points out the buildings as not communicating their irresolution of architecture’s dialectic function due to a lack of symbolic problems. I would argue that all his cues. other work (which is not connected to a Mies building) suffers in that it Within this hegemonic environment expresses otherness without a strong Rem also addresses Venturi’s criti- contrasting normalized foil. Difference and repetition. McCormick Tribune Campus Center.

2a. Rem Koolhaas 131 desire of architects to express both structure and program, which, as I’ve discussed in the analysis of Venturi, create differing outcomes. Architec- ture is essentially a collision between these dualities.

Eisenman argues that modern architecture ignores conceptions of moder- fig.21 nity as it is realized in other artistic and cultural modalities. He states b. Peter Eisenman Modern architecture -- as it was practiced in the first half of the twenti- Eisenman’s reaction to structure eth century-- is thus an extension or and history are in direct contrast to offshoot of a classicist trajectory. His the methodology of Modernity and solution is to break from the histori- Mies, but with a similar intention cal priorities of form and function towards the elucidation of essential and create a language of architecture architectural truth. This truth is won free from symbolic associations, leg- through the profoundly difficult cre- ible only on a direct level and, unfet- ation of architectural autonomy. By tered by externalities that shape its any degree architecture is, in contrast being (fig. 21). It also rejects build- to all the arts, fundamentally invaded ing as something that has a goal or by and a product of external factors. a function. Autonomy (as proposed by Eisenman) risks over-distillation to the point This idea of a post-humanist (and where the ideas that make something therefore truly modernist) architec- “architectural” vanish. ture favors the random, excessive, and non-symbolic. It is complex with- In his essay on post-functionalism45 out a purpose, structurally redundant, Eisenman states that a fundamental and (ironically through an obliterat- duality of humanist architecture lies ing palimpsest) historically negating between the competing desire for (fig. 22). function (both structural and programmatic) as it collides with the The problem is that architecture is a aesthetic desire for appropriate ex- very slow process, and any attempts pression of form. The expression of at the improvised and unplanned can- form is often at odds with the raw not translate within the slow process truth of design, which creates a rup- of construction. Working drawings ture between the possibilities of ob- never function like Sol Lewitt wall jective truth and the possibility of its painting instructions or John Cage legibility in symbolic expression. He music sheets. Attempts to suppress goes further to discuss the competing the coordinated willfulness that goes 132 2b. Peter Eisenman fig.22 Wexner Center into building will always result in a and important to architecture. One disconnect between the idea and the could say Mies fought the literal reality. Architecture, of course, is all good fight, and postmodernists, like about these fictions, which are cre- Eisenman fought it with irony. As a ated to defy the limitations that the civilization we desire clarity in defi- material world imposes upon our free ance of nature’s chaos. We strive for imaginings. truth, even amidst doubt. Architec- ture creates a reassuring illusion of Mies is guilty of this in his expression permanence for its creators, who are of honesty through concealment, his constantly in flux. revealing of structure through ornament, and his use of sumptuous materials to evoke the spiritual.

The radical, nearly Dadaist, break that post-functionalism proposes is only successful in that it places a mirror up to what is truly fundamental 2b. Peter Eisenman 133 c. Frank Gehry

Frank Gehry strives to bring (his interpretation of) feeling back into architecture. The result is highly expressionistic forms that resemble sculpture more than architecture (fig. 23). Gehry’s forms are not based on programmatic or structural ratio- fig.23 nal, but the whimsy of the designer. Construction methods are a posthu- Dualities in Gehry’s work are com- mous generic framework for his bold pletely off balance. Sculpture in the forms, rather than a guide for them. context of the Bilbao Guggenheim This results in extreme structural ac- weakly shows the dialectic between robatics. There is little dialogue be- the differing arts (fig.24). Sculpture tween how the building is made and and Architecture blur into each other. what it expresses. His earlier work The architecture thus competes for in the seventies showed an interest in the attention of the viewer. There is “vulgar” vernacular materials such as rarely a tension between inside and plywood, chain-link fence, and CMU. outside, because his forms are so of- These are black sheep counterparts ten opaque. Opacity is required to give to the sumptuous marbles and metals presence to his wild forms. The ear- that Mies used in his regal work. lier stylistic quotations of his work in the 80’s are abandoned in his mature Materiality in Gehry’s later work is phase. His new work references only strictly intended as an anonymous itself; except for complete contrast, it surface for form. His priority is to is not in a dialogue with the lineage solve the problem of these superfici- of architectural history. Innovation is alities; all other components of the not balanced by tradition. design are subordinate. One could echo Paul Rudolph’s famous critique However, to complicate this reading of Mies and apply it to Gehry: further (and to finally find a shared struggle between Mies and Gehry), Mies [Gehry], for instance, makes Rafael Moneo proposes that Gehry’s wonderful buildings only because he work is primarily an attempt to me- ignores many aspects of a building. diate the duality between idea and If he solved more problems his build- form. Ideas, of course, even if Gehry’s ings would be far less potent. This are not striving towards some exter- paradox is heightened by the various nalized notion of truth (as in Mies), commitments to functionalism [ex- are of supreme importance, because pressionistic form].46 fierce subjective sculptural form is at the highest risk for real-world compromise. Thus, “salvation lies in 134 2c. Frank Gehry fig.24

2c. Frank Gehry 135 maintaining the immediacy of the fundamental to all architecture. Yet object.”47 He accomplishes this me- he ignores many other tensions in- diation by largely eliminating drawing trinsic and specific to the profession and going straight to model-making. of architecture. The model, as discussed in the first part of this thesis, is an object that represents both (and neither) reality and the idea. It is with the model that Gehry tries to eliminate the barriers between how he imagines his building and how the building will ultimately get built.*

In this sense, Gehry displays extreme pragmatism in his attempt to make sculptural forms. He echoes Mies nearly verbatim (unsurprisingly with less grace) concerning his interest in the construction process; “Buildings under construction look nicer than buildings finished.”49 In this sense he prefers the visceral honesty of construction and tries to reveal that process of construction, even if – like with Mies or Sullivan-- the formal aspects are not a metaphor for that process. If Gehry paid less attention to the real world, his forms would not align with their final result.

In the earlier analysis of Mies and the skyscraper, one sees that this ability to minimize compromises and find equilibrium between the idea and the built form is a slow process that takes years of mistakes. After many attempts, ideas mingle with possibili- *Moneo points out, however, that Gehry’s ties and the results -- whether at the buildings often end up looking like literal Seagram Building or the Guggenheim scaled-up versions of the models. Often Bilbao -- appear effortless. times one can see the folds of fabrics or the pieces of balsawood in the buildings, Gehry’s career, therefore, reveals the rather than any suggestion that they have Material~Spiritual duality that is a relationship to what they are actually made out of. 48 136 2c. Frank Gehry 3. Yes is More: Mies in the Con- tural acrobatics. Of course, there temporary Scene. are parametricists who create wild forms and those who attempt to cre- Modernism, and thus its symbolic ate forms based on material, struc- leader Mies van der Rohe, is now tural, or performative optimization. among one of many historical eras This pure subjectivity and attempted in which architects today can draw objectivity, in order to truly reflect a inspiration from. Bracketed fully by Miesian spirit, must balance between history, Mies still stands for a phi- the two: the subjective being the ex- losophy of design that has not faded. pression of the (unreachable) objec- The view of history tends to change tive ideal. as time goes on, and Mies has certainly survived his large dismissal in Others, who focus on the typological, the 80’s, continuing to inspire prac- (a concept not truly given a voice or tice in new and unexpected ways: obsessed over until after Mies death) Unexpected, because Mies is being also cite Mies as an important inspi- applied to new possibilities and con- ration, with his attempts at refining straints that didn’t exist in his own and clarifying various building types time. Relevancy beyond one’s own such as the clear span and the high- epoch is certainly the test of a great rise. Once again Mies is at risk of artist, and Mies will continue to influ- reduction; his architecture standing ence architecture with his broad and merely as a symbolic starting point clarified ideology. from which other more complex forms spring forward. Modernism continues in the work of David Chipperfield, Herzog and De Sustainability issues act as a contem- Mueron, Renzo Piano, and Peter porary constraint not widely present Zumthor with a renewed sensitivity in Mies’s time. In the work of Wer- towards material possibilities that ner Sobek, Mies’s principles of “al- would certainly have thrilled Mies. most nothing” can serve as an inspi- Zumthor in particularly works in a ration for a minimal use of materials similarly Miesian manner in that he that are easily recyclable through an begins with materials and the craft of emphasis on assembly and disassem- their construction. bly (fig. 25). Sobek is a firm believer in stretching materials to their limits, The computer has allowed for new which ultimately means his buildings possibilities of precision and form. use less more effectively. Widespread Many practitioners in the current practice of these techniques would phase of parametricism cite Mies as a significantly reduce waste during and tabula rasa for their wild forms. This after the lifespan of a building. is, of course, a woefully simplistic reading of his work, and in no way Sustainable practice reveals that lib- justifies such flagrant forms of struc- eral glass usage creates new problems

3. Yes is More 137 fig.25 of energy conservation. Mies’s glass phy of a slow revealing of form and boxes simply cannot survive the new a search for essence (even in a time performative demands of architec- when this search may seem foolish) ture. An extra layer of sunshading, is still a possibility in design. Mies’s in all of its permutations, almost al- philosophy, at its core, can therefore ways lack the grace of Mies’s unfet- brave the storms of changing history tered crystaline facades. Glass is also as long as it inspires new generations problematic as an insulator, therefore to think about the fundamental prob- mass is a logical reintroduction onto lems of their own time and the ways facades to increase their energy effi- in which these problems can be solved ciency, even if this destroys the clear poetically. structure that Mies expressed so well. Unless a highly insulated sun deflect- ing super-glass is introduced, the use of sunshading and increased mass will likely remain as constraints upon design.

The freedom afforded by new methods of architectural creation -- along with new literal and ideological constraints-- inevitably forces a deviation from the Miesian method of design, a method that defined the epoch of modernity most clearly. The philoso-

138 3. Yes is More Conclusion to Part II. Innovation ~ Tradition

The fundamentally contradictory One of the greatest rarely discussed nature of architecture, as analyzed taboos of current architectural prac- through dualities in this thesis, re- tice is tradition. Today there exists mains in the contemporary scene, but a constant pressure to reinvent the the search for a new computational wheel. Innovation and newness are or sustainable agency marginalizes prioritized over anything else. His- these pursuits. There are relevant torical richness and the perfected ways that one can continue to exploit methods of construction over genera- or reconcile the inherent myriad du- tions are tossed out the window in the alities in design practice. name of the refreshing rush of the new. One can see why quotes by Mies Material ~ Spiritual such as, “I don’t want to be interest- ing, I want to be good,” and “You Any architect that ignores the journey can’t invent a new style every Monday from idea to manifestation will cre- morning,” are seldom used today. ate compromised buildings that are mere shadows of their initial creative Blind innovation often sacrifices outpourings. The computer favors craft, and lacks a foundation for pos- anonymous surfaces and shapes dis- terity (because buildings last much connected from the way things are ac- longer than fashion). Mies’s use of tually built. The real is marginalized the innovation~tradition duality in favor of representation. reveals an alternative to pure innovation or pure conservatism. New Consequently, the convincing effects modes of construction and new ideas, of a rendering are often lost in the balanced with historical allusion and corporeal scale, the materiality, and perfected ways of building, will cre- the structural possibilities of the real ate a richness of form lacking in the world. This incongruence between purely iconoclastic forms of today. what is imagined and what is built is a constant in architecture, think of Protection ~ Connection Boulee or Sant’ Elia, but these moments of transition usually pave the The semi-recent exodus from rural to way for radical ideas to catch up to urban regions has strained the dialec- possibility. Computer design in the tic between nature and architecture. future will ideally attempt to (and Discourse since the 70’s finds nearly this is already occurring with the its entire agency in the dialogue be- increased interest in digital fabrica- tween dwelling and city. In the urban tion) reconcile the freedom afforded context there is an increasing need on the screen with the possibilities of for privacy in a world beset by sur- the real world.

Conclusion to Part II 139 veillance and increasing population aligns with different approaches to density. This “transparency”--as if a form. whole society lives in an aquarium on display—reinforces the need for met- In modernity, the prevailing philoso- aphorical privacy in design, which is phy of scientific positivism coincided reified by the need for increased mass with the “new” technology and ma- to naturally regulate temperatures in teriality of steel glass and concrete. a sustainably demanding world. The Modern international style architec- ideological and literal openness of ture emerged as a result, but fringe modernity is less desired; there is design movements revealed that the an overwhelming, and fundamentally technology was utilizable in entirely conservative, desire to find repose different ways. Mies could have ex- from the chaos of the city. ploited modern techniques to create wildly subjective forms, as did Paradoxically, literal interconnectiv- Mendelsohn and Scharoun. His first ity is a common architectural obses- avant-garde projects hinted at this sion in the information age. Current possibility. However, as the 1920’s design practices are preoccupied with continued, Mies increasingly empha- the linkages between urban design, sized the rational in design, perhaps landscape, architecture, sociology, because he sensed a hollow novelty in and the sciences. Ideally a balance pure Expressionism. can be struck that prevents hermetic compartmentalization and naked un- Mies found a way to address the divided flow. fundamental rational and spiritual battles that occur within architec- Freedom ~ Constraint ture. His work constantly oscillated between logical motivation and poetic The primary driving engine of archi- prowess. Not only did he address du- tecture is not technology, but ideas. alities, he attempted to reveal essen- Ideas are most often the innovators, tial contradictory forces at the core and technology is created to accom- of architecture. These forces might modate the demands of ideological unfold in restful reconciliation, as need. There are often times in his- Hegel proposed, and as Mies strived tory when a revolution in design oc- towards. He was also aware that ev- curs without a noticeable difference ery contradiction in design couldn’t in technological possibility. This oc- endure unification. In these instances curred during the Baroque and post- he exploited the duality, and mined modern eras, where the fundamental its disjunctive power. When duality methods of building changed little, is resolved, it is effortless and nearly but the philosophical demands did. invisible. When duality is unresolved, Computer technology is allowing for the juxtaposition of extreme contrasts the wild forms of our time, but they can create dynamic tensions. Either only really exist because our ideology method reveals the underlying dialectic nature of architecture. 140 Conclusion to Part II Bibliographical Notes: 15. --72

1. Krauss, Rosalind. from, The 16. -- Grid,The /Cloud/, and the Detail in, The Presence of Mies. page 133 17. --74

2. Venturi, Robert. Complexity and 18. --82 Contradiction in Architecture. New York, NY: The Museum of Modern 19. – Art, 2002. page, 17 20. --84 3. -- 13 21. Hays, K. Michael. From Odysseus 4. --17 and the Oarsmen, or, Mies’s Abstrac- tion Once Again, in The 5. Rowe, Colin. The Mathematics of Presence of Mies. the Ideal Villa. page 149 22. Venturi, Robert. Complexity and 6. --34 Contradiction. page 86

7. ibid. 23. --90

8. --40 24. --88

9. --41 25. ibid.

10. Aldo Rossi discusses this in his 26. --102 example of the Palazzo della Ragione as an urban artifact, which agglom- 27. --96 erates additions and programs over many centuries of use. Rossi, Aldo. 28. --98 The Architecture of the City. Page 29 29. –

11. Venturi, Robert. Complexity and 30. --92 Contradiction. page 41 31. --96 12. --42 32. --102 13. --50 33. --18 14. --70

141 34. Jencks, Charles. Postmodern Ar- 48. ibid. page 286 chitecture. page 5 49. ibid. page 261 35. Venturi, Robert. Complexity and Contradiction. page 42

36. Jencks, Charles. Modern Move- ments. page 95

37. Jencks, Charles. Postmodern Arch. page 17

38. ibid. page 16

39. ibid. page 15

40. Jencks, Charles. Modern Move- ments. page 104

41. Tigerman, Stanley. Versus page 29

42. Tigerman, Stanley. Schlepping Through Ambivalence. page 153

43. Tigerman, Stanley. Versus. page 146

44. Mies in Berlin. page 727

45. Eisenman, Peter. Post-Function- alism in Hays Arch Theory since 1968. page 236

46. Rudolph, Paul. as Quoted in Venturi’s Complexity and Contradic- tion. page 16

47. Moneo, Rafael. Theoretical Anxi- ety. page 259

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