In between crystalline and transparent. The skyscraper in Friedrichstrasse by Mies Van der Rohe

[EN] Crystalline qualities of glass were very appreciated by Expressionism. Some years later, transparency became a keystone for the Modern Movement. Mies van der Rohe drew his entry for the Friedrichstrasse Competition in 1921, in a moment of transition between both architectonical movements. The aim of this article is to show how the graphic documents made by Mies exemplify this change of tendency. His representation of the glazed enclosure evolves from opaque reflection to a partial transparency that shows the inner structure. This process confirms the importance of structural conception for the architectural form. These drawings show the beginning of a new poetic of transparency, for its author as for Modernism.[ES] Los arquitectos expresionistas apreciaron el simbolismo cristalino del vidrio. Unos años más tarde el Movimiento Moderno ensalzó su transparencia. Mies van der Rohe dibuja su propuesta para el concurso de Rascacielos en la Friedrichstrasse en 1921, en un momento de transición entre ambas corrientes arquitectónicas. El objetivo de este artículo es analizar la documentación gráfica elaborada por Mies como ejemplo de este cambio de tendencia. Su representación del cierre acristalado evoluciona desde el reflejo casi opaco hacia una transparencia parcial que hace visible la estructura interior. Este proceso confirma la importancia de la concepción estructural de la forma arquitectónica. Estos dibujos muestran el principio de una poética de lo trasparente, tanto para su autor como para la arquitectura moderna.Resano Resano, D. (2017). Entre lo cristalino y lo transparente. El rascacielos en la Friedrichstrasse de Mies van der Rohe. EGA. Revista de Expresión Gráfica Arquitectónica. 22(31):132-139. doi:10.4995/ega.2017.3507SWORD1321392231Drexler, A. & schulze, F. (1986) The Mies van der Rohe Archive, New York, Garland.Neumeyer, F. (1995) The Artless Word: Mies van der Rohe on the Building Art. From the Spanis Edition: La palabra sin artificio, Madrid, El Croquis.Scheerbart, P. (1914) Glassarchitectur. From the edition in Spanish: (1998) La arquitectura de cristal, Murcia Colegio Oficial de Aparejadores y Arquitectos Técnicos.Taut, B. (1922a) without tittle. Frühlicht, 3, 84-85.Taut, B. (1922b) Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Hochhaus. Frühlicht, 4, 122-124.Tegethoff, W. (1985). The Villas and Country Houses. Nueva York, MOMA

LEARNING FROM THE SYMBOL: Image and Symbolic Reference in Early Postmodern Architectural Discourse

[EN] This article makes an approach to the symbolic recovery as the fundamental argument used in the revised edition of Learning from Las Vegas (Venturi, Scott Brown & Izenour, 1977), a text which had with important repercussions on counter-modernist architectural theory. This recovery, extremely critical with the vulgarised imposition of the functionalism of the international style, coincides with the North American Neo-avantgarde’s rejection of the formalist academicism of abstract expressionism, as well as with the crisis of the concept of modernity, caused by what was conceptualised, not without certain confusion, as post-modern thought.[ES] El presente artículo efectúa una aproximación a la recuperación simbólica como argumento fundamental utilizado en la edición revisada de Aprendiendo de Las Vegas (Venturi, Scott Brown & Izenour, 1977), texto que asumió una importante repercusión en la teoría arquitectónica contramodernista. Esta recuperación, extremadamente crítica con la imposición vulgarizada del funcionalismo del estilo internacional, resulta coincidente con el rechazo de la neovanguardia norteamericana hacia el academicismo formalista del expresionismo abstracto, así como con la crisis del concepto de modernidad, propiciada por lo que —no sin cierta confusión— se conceptualizó como pensamiento posmodernoPérez Rodrigo, D. (2015). Aprendiendo del símbolo: imagen y referencia simbólica en los inicios del discurso arquitectónico posmoderno. EME Experimental Illustration, Art & Design. (3):88-101. doi:10.4995/eme.2015.3407SWORD881013Anderson, PERRY: Los orígenes de la posmodernidad, Barcelona, Anagrama, 2000.Bürger, PETER: Teoría de la vanguardia, Barcelona, Península, 1987.Eliade, MIRCEA: Lo sagrado y lo profano, Barcelona, Paidós, 1999.Foster, HAL (Ed.): La posmodernidad, Barcelona, Kairós, 1985.Jameson, FREDRIC: El posmodernismo o la lógica cultural del capitalismo avanzado, Barcelona, Paidós, 1991.Jencks, CHARLES: El nuevo paradigma en la arquitectura contemporánea, Valencia, Ediciones Generales de la Construcción, 2004.LYOTARD, JEAN-FRANÇOIS: La condición postmoderna. Informe sobre el saber, Madrid, Cátedra, 1984.LYOTARD, JEAN-FRANÇOIS: La posmodernidad (explicada a los ni-os), Barcelona, Gedisa, 1987.Ribalta, JORGE (Ed.): Efecto real. Debates posmodernos sobre fotografía, Barcelona, Gustavo Gili, 2004.Scheerbart, PAUL: La arquitectura de cristal, Murcia, Colegio Oficial de Aparejadores y Arquitectos Técnicos de Murcia, 1998.Scheerbart, PAUL: El móvil perpetuo. Historia de un invento, Madrid, Gallo Nero, 2014.VENTURI, ROBERT; SCOTT BROWN, DENISE & IZENOUR, STEVEN: Aprendiendo de Las Vegas. El simbolismo olvidado de la forma arquitectónica, Barcelona, Gustavo Gili, 2011

Mud and Modernity

What is concrete? Loved and loathed in equal measure, this building material, as soon as we try to define it, to specify it, to describe it, becomes, well, not very concrete at all, but rather fluid and surprisingly abstract! Concrete is a material which has been going through an interesting intellectual and practical renaissance in recent years, in no small part driven by the convergence of several different kinds of technology-driven manufacturing changes - ranging from computer aided manufacturing of formworks, to photograph etching, to engineering software, to nano- and bio-chemistry to 3D printing - which have opened up new worlds of realizable, expressive and performance optimised form. The demands posed by anthropogenic climate change, energy use, resource scarcity, and the environmental question more generally, have equally transformed the technologies and industries that are now feeding into developments in this material. On its own though, that is not enough to understand the revival in interest. In this paper I will argue that there are indeed profound relationships between capital, modernity and concrete. However, I will suggest that in order to really start to grasp these relations, we will need to explore some ways of thinking about concrete that have not been developed so far within the recent literature on the material. Notably I will develop an ecological approach to thinking about what concrete is, and in so doing redefine this material as a particular form of mud, or mudcrete: a material which is deployed by both human and non-human builders. I will note the ecological energetics and extended materialities of mudcrete, and will reflect upon the conceptual 'forms' or ‘patterns’ of this matter as a particular modality of the production of nature. Mudcretes always internalise in particularly interesting ways I argue, their external relations, the extended networks of materials, skills, labours and energies that go into their production. Mudcretes frequently stage fascinating bio-semiotic performances, whichever species or processes are dominant. But when the mudcretes in question are the product of human labour, they always act as social media

A view through a window: Social relations, material objects and locality

In this article the authors ask what it would mean to think sociologically about the window as a specific material and symbolic object. Drawing on qualitative analysis of a series of comparative interviews with residents in three different streets in a diverse local area of Glasgow, they explore what the use and experience of windows tells us about their respondents’ very different relationships to the places where they live. On the one hand, the window, as a material feature of the home, helps us grasp the lived reality of class inequality and how such inequality shapes people’s day-to-day experience. On the other hand, windows are symbolically charged objects, existing at the border of the domestic and public world. For this reason, they feature in important ways in local debates over the appearance, ownership and conservation of the built environment. The article explores these struggles, and shows what they reveal about the construction of belonging in the neighbourhood, a process which is both classed and racialised at one and the same time.ESR

Apšvietimas kaip architektūros modernumo simbolis

The paper is designed to reveal the aesthetics of artificial lighting and its influence on the architecture of the 20th century. The main topics discussed are electric lighting, which appeard in our history at the end of the 19th century, and the technical development of lighting till the middle of the 20th century. Connections of artificial lighting with visual arts, its influence on advertisement, building architecture and the whole city are analysed. An idea is proposed that although lighting by nature was purely functional, very soon it acquired symbolic ambitions to represent architecture. In modern times architects understood that lighting was both a technological development and a symbol of a new era, when there appeared an independent field of creation - lighting architecture. Santrauka Straipsnyje nagrinėjama dirbtinio apšvietimo estetika ir jos įtaka XX a. architektūrai. Išryškinta XIX a. pabaigoje atsiradusio elektrinio apšvietimo svarba ir atskleista apšvietimo techninė raida iki XX a. vidurio. Nagrinėjamos dirbtinio apšvietimo sąsajos su vizualiaisiais menais, apšvietimo įtaka reklamai, pastatų architektūrai bei visam miestui. Straipsnyje keliama idėja, kad nors apšvietimo prigimtis pradžioje buvo grynai funkcionali, ji greitai įgavo simbolinių ambicijų – reprezentuoti architektūrą. Architektai į apšvietimą žvelgė ne tik kaip į technologinę pažangą, tai buvo naują erą ženklinantis simbolis, erą, kurioje atsiranda didelės įtakos visoms kūrybinėms idėjoms turinti nauja savarankiška kūrybos sritis – šviesos architektūra. First Published Online: 22 May 2013 Reikšminiai žodžiai: meninis, dirbtinis, elektrinis apšvietimas, stiklo, šviesos architektūra, modernumas

There or not there? A multidisciplinary review and research agenda on the impact of transparent barriers on human perception, action, and social behavior

Contains fulltext : 145066.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)Through advances in production and treatment technologies, transparent glass has become an increasingly versatile material and a global hallmark of modern architecture. In the shape of invisible barriers, it defines spaces while simultaneously shaping their lighting, noise, and climate conditions. Despite these unique architectural qualities, little is known regarding the human experience with glass barriers. Is a material that has been described as being simultaneously there and not there from an architectural perspective, actually there and/or not there from perceptual, behavioral, and social points of view? In this article, we review systematic observations and experimental studies that explore the impact of transparent barriers on human cognition and action. In doing so, the importance of empirical and multidisciplinary approaches to inform the use of glass in contemporary architecture is highlighted and key questions for future inquiry are identified.17 p

Münchhausen und Clarissa

MÜNCHHAUSEN UND CLARISSA Münchhausen und Clarissa / Scheerbart, Paul (Public Domain) ( - ) Title page ( - ) Das Vorspiel ( - ) Der Montag ([17]) Der Dienstag ([31]) Der Mittwoch ([49]) Der Donnerstag ([65]) Der Freitag ([81]) Der Sonnabend ([97]) Der Sonntag ([113]) Das Nachspiel ([133]) Contents ( - ) Advertising ( - ) ColorChart ( -

La nueva vida: apocalipsis arquitectónico

El escritor alemán Paul Scheerbart (1865-1915) es el autor de algunas de las intervenciones más originales en el contexto del expresionismo arquitectónico y un exponente privilegiado de la recepción del utopismo en la época de las vanguardias. Su obra más conocida, Glasarchitektur �una exaltación radical de la arquitectura de cristal�, tuvo una gran influencia sobre arquitectos como Bruno Taut o filósofos como Walter Benjamin. Scheerbart es un producto genuino de la Centroeuropa de principios del siglo XX: poeta experimental y dibujante, después de dedicar algunos años a la invención de un perpetuum mobile, murió de inanición tras una huelga de hambre que inició como protesta personal por el estallido de la Primera Guerra Mundial. Recuperamos aquí dos textos inéditos en castellano extraídos de su novela fantástica sobre los hipopótamos Immer Mutig (1902), en los que Scheerbart plantea una utopía arquitectónica de intensa potencia onírica