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From Frame to Framing Oz Volume 22 Article 2 1-1-2000 From Frame to Framing Juhani Pallasmaa Follow this and additional works at: https://newprairiepress.org/oz This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License. Recommended Citation Pallasmaa, Juhani (2000) "From Frame to Framing," Oz: Vol. 22. https://doi.org/10.4148/2378-5853.1346 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by New Prairie Press. It has been accepted for inclusion in Oz by an authorized administrator of New Prairie Press. For more information, please contact [email protected]. From Frame to Framing Juhani Pallasmaa Aulis Blomstedt: Canon 60 A constructivist1 aesthetic, empha- Consequently, the post-war roman- Case Study Houses commissioned by sizing clear articulation of the struc- tic, expressive and regionalist ideals John Entenza for the Art & Architec- tural frame, became the architectural served as the ground for the rise of the ture magazine in Los Angeles from ideal for young Finnish architects of constructivist classicism of the 1960s. mid-1940s onwards. This momentary my generation in the early 1960s. This The generation of the 60s regarded the connection between California and architecture developed as an intel- structural frame and its precise articu- Finland is an interesting example of lectual opposition to the prevailing lation as the most essential element the intricacies of cultural influences post-war tradition of neo-function- of architectural expression, even more in the realm of the arts. While Finn- alist architecture, which had turned constitutive than the molding of space ish constructivism was inspired by excessively pragmatic and unclear or articulation of light. This architec- traditional Japanese aesthetics, Tadao in its philosophical foundation. The tural ideal was inspired by two distant Ando has confessed having been stimu- aesthetic of rationality was also moti- sources, the structural classicism of lated by the minimalist architecture vated as a deliberate opposition to the Mies van der Rohe and traditional in Finland, to give another example of idiosyncratic architecture of the aging Japanese architecture. Especially the the unexpectedness of cultural inter- Alvar Aalto. An oscillation between imposingly classical pavilions of the change. The elegant and precise steel mental polarities, such as romantic Katsura Detached Palace, raised on frame architecture of Craig Ellwood, and rational, expressive and classical, wood columns, were admired for their Pierre Koenig, Raphael Soriano, the regional and universal tendencies is noble proportions. More unexpected Killingworth, Brady and Smith team, Aulis Blomstedt: Modular study based on 4 characteristic to cultural development. inspiration came from the elegant Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen was continuous halving unexpectedly transferred to wood con- and proportional modulation. The struction in Finland.2 The expression Finnish constructivists preferred of the structural frame both outside the Pythagorean tradition based on and inside was an essential aspiration even numbers and simple arithmetical for the constructivist aesthetics, and operations instead of Le Corbusier’s wood—being a structural and insu- Modulor and the Golden Section lation material at the same time—is which were regarded occult in their the only material which enables this philosophical foundation and awkward transparency, or absoluteness of struc- in actual design application. The most tural expression in the severe Nordic influential mentor of the emerging climate. Similar architectural develop- constructivist movement was Aulis ment occurred in Denmark although Blomstedt, a devoted Pythagorean the Danes did not go as far in the or- and an architect and educator of peas- thodox expression of the structural ant like simplicity combined with an frame. The Danish ideal of combined exceptionally refined sense of propor- frame and planar structure was closer tion. During the 1950s Blomstedt had to R.M. Schindler’s house of 1922 in carried out extensive studies in the West Hollywood than the pure frame of harmonic principles of architecture, Pierre Koenig, Case Study House 21, Los Angeles, California, 1958 the Case Study Houses and the Finnish comparable with R.M. Schindler’s constructivism. earlier studies begun in the 1920s. The conclusion of Blomstedt’s pas- The Dutch De Stijl and Russian Con- sionate research was a proportional structivism also served as sources of system based on the musical subdivi- inspiration regardless of the more pla- sion of figure/number/digit 60, based nar and non-structural nature of the on Pythagorean harmonics, which he aesthetics of these movements. The called Canon 60. In my personal design former was admired because of the practice since the 1960s Blomstedt’s spatial flow, abstraction and equal- Canon 60 has proven a practical nu- ization of the horizontal and vertical merical and proportional system for directions, the latter because of the the articulation of the architectural passionate structural and volumetric ensemble from the dimensioning of the expression and strong sense of social structural frame down to the measure mission. The planar paintings of Piet of details. I have used Pythagorean pro- Mondrian, Ben Nicholson and Victor portions also in product and graphic Vasarely were also admired. designs, more as a practical attitude and quest for clarity, however, than a Focusing on the structural frame philosophical orthodoxy. emphasizes the tectonic essence of construction as well as the impor- Besides its aesthetic intentions, the tance of dimensional coordination framed architecture of the 60s also Katsura Detached Palace 5 Kirmo Mikkola and Juhani Pallasmaa, Summer House Relander, Muurame, 1965 had philosophical, ethical and social of the aestheticized socialist utopia of framed architecture was considered human scale and sensuous detailing motives. Architecture conceived as the Russian Constructivism four de- to possess aesthetic neutrality, an ap- were forgotten, and frame construc- a modulated and articulated frame cades earlier. In the perspective of half propriate reflection of the democratic tion was used merely for purposes of clearly foregrounds the rational, logical a century, the Californian Case Study values of equality. Excessive personal efficiency, flexibility and economy. Dur- and abstract qualities of construction. Houses also appear as an optimistic expression was viewed critically and ing the following decade, it became The aspiration for a true expression of and refreshing utopia in compari- judged regressive. painfully clear that no architectural the structural and tectonic realities son with the regressive architectural approach or system can guarantee also tends to bring forth an ethical ar- conservatism of subsequent decades. Somewhat later, the idea of the ar- architectural quality; aesthetic quality gument. Auguste Perret’s famous ethi- The Eames House in Santa Monica, in chitectural frame was expanded to is a result of deliberate intentions and cal credo became the moral attitude particular, appears more radical and urban context by Yona Friedman in choices. An optimistic air gives rise to of the constructivists: “Construction promising than any of the residential France and the Metabolists in Japan, an architecture of hope whereas cyni- is the mother tongue of the architect. designs of today’s avant-garde, which for instance. Herman Hertzberger cism produces cynical architecture. The architect is a poet who thinks and seem narcissistic in comparison and studied the delicacies of human be- speaks in terms of construction. The devoid of an optimistic perspective havior and developed the idea of the The ideal of the spatial frame made its larger buildings of our time presup- into the future. repetitiously modulated spatial frame new return into the world of art and pose a framework…The framework towards structuralist anthropological architecture thirty years later through is to a building what a skeleton is to An awareness of the social and po- applications. minimalism. In the minimalist sculp- an animal...He who hides any part of litical implications of architecture ture of Sol Lewitt and Donald Judd, for the framework not only deprives ar- arose in Finland during the 60s and The fragility of the utopian contents instance, as well as in the current archi- chitecture of its sole legitimacy but this was reflected in the values of the of this architectural ideology became tecture of Gigon & Guyer and Hertzog also deprives from it its most beautiful architectural profession; instead of evident a few years later when con- & de Meuron, the frame has obtained a ornament. He who hides a column the traditionally impartial role of the struction companies vulgarized and metaphysi cal air. The minimalist frame makes a blunder, he who makes a false architect as a trusted expert, he/she exploited the idea of industrially manu- aspires for a mesmer -ising stasis and column commits a crime.”4 was seen as an active participant in the factured frame construction through repetitiousness, a sense of presence allocation of collective resources. In their countless buildings for produc- and being instead of the dynamism The constructivist movement of the addition to its potential as a medium tion and commerce. The spiritualising and movement characteristic to early 6 1960s was a utopian ideal reminiscent of industrialized mass production, aspirations for proportional harmony, modernism. This visual repetitious- ness
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