“by the thirties people like kay fisker and c. f. moller were making reference to the international style in their copenhagen housing projects: long, low-rise, garden apartments with balconies and shops below. but many of the wartime and post war architects abandoned any international style overtones and reverted to a kind of arts and crafts version of housing, in which apartments were made to appear to be detached, freestanding single family houses with steep sloping roofs and brick detail.”

jorn utzon, kingohusene (1956-60)

arne jacobsen,  munkegardsskolen (1948-57)

 

more “modern danish” design via seier + seier flickr feed.

 

great danes

a young hare

 

 

notes:

[title]     Sherwood, Roger. Modern Housing Prototypes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1978. 45. Print.

[images]     as previously stated: arne jacobsen’s munkegardsskolen and jorn utzon’s kingohusene are from the amazing seier + seier flickr feed.

[more danishes]     for more photographs of jorn utzon check out this ayh post.

“houses are arranged in a loose group with restricted access for the car and an entry on one side; the other side opens to a pond, a slope, or some other aspect of a very picturesque setting. a more or less random grouping results, but the impression is of repetitive units.”

jorn utzon, kingohusene 1956-60

 

although there are several different plans, each house has a courtyard about 50 feet square that is defined by a brick wall.  attached to two walls of the court and opening onto it is an l-shaped house; a tile roof slopes from the top of the wall down to the house’s inside edge.  entry is usually into the intersection of the legs of the l, with dining and living spaces in one direction, bedrooms in the other…

although the plan of each house is clear, the organization of the site seems random; relationships to other buildings do not seem specific, and it is probably significant that the later project at fredensborg incorporated a community center – a gesture to community life that the kingo houses could not claim.

-modern housing prototypes

 

seemingly random

a young hare

 

 

notes:

[title + text]     Sherwood, Roger. Modern Housing Prototypes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1978. 45-48. Print.

[images]     via arquitectures 234.

[more modern housing prototypes]     for another interesting project mentioned on ayh check out this post on atelier 5.

“in punte pite, i went there and i knew the place and i said: ‘listen, this is for everybody because there is such beauty.’ this public space makes everything better, for business, for nature, for the people, for everybody. i think that the place talks by itself. if go there and walk along the coast as i did, you can feel that it’s a special place. so you build a path.”

teresa moller, punte pite (2005)

 

caitrin daly and adrian keene:  it’s almost like you mediate a way for people to negotiate and experience these sites.

teresa moller:  yes, with one little line, it helps you to go from one place to the other but you don’t need more than that.

cd + ak:  in terms of your process, when you design a landscape do you design piece by piece over time, or do you create a whole plan?

tm:  i make a plan because you have to have one vision, one idea.  one vision for all of it and you must know that you want something to come from this place.  you may go in different ways, but you have to know where you start and where you finish – it doesn’t work to go little by little.  because then it becomes like all different things together and you will never get the feeling of something that is a whole vision.  for instance, a park design (named ‘casablanca ii’), started by discovering a circle that was there but you didn’t see it because it was hidden under many trees, i cleaned it and then suddenly i saw all these other trees that were also planted in a circle.  somebody made this many years ago.  from these discoveries i make a plan.  but if i start in one place and i do one thing and then another thing it doesn’t become one experience.

cd + ak:  so you must walk and experience the terrain and landscape before you begin designing…

tm:  oh yes or else i can’t do anything….

cd + ak:  if you could tell us a little bit about how you approach a site?

tm:  i think it is very important to be in the place.  before doing anything, you need to be aware of what is there and what that place wants you to do.  i think it’s really the most important thing.  it is something that one cannot overlook.  you can’t design a project without spending time in the site because your design is empty without being connected with the place.  for instance we are going to shanghai to design a project with a chilean architect.  i told the client that i can’t think of something without first being there, even if it’s a patio inside a building.  i could design it on the computer and create all the plans, but how can i understand what i want – or what the place wants – if i don’t know the landscape.  so we have to go, just to breathe the air in shanghai, to know what we want to have there.

cd + ak:  more and more, people work with photographs or on the computer in order to create a design.

tm:  yes, people often work from photography.  i would prohibit this.  it happens so much that you go back to the studio, you do the plans, you do the work and then you start building.  then you realize that you didn’t see that there was a hill that you could have put in the view.  you have to be in the site. 

….

cd + ak:  you describe your design practice as being a tool which can completely immerse people in nature.  how do you think that your work does this?

tm:  not as good as i would like! because people are really difficult.  i work in nature because it is not so serious.  it’s not like if you were a medical doctor working in the intensive care unit where people are about to die.  nature is all the opposite.  everything is… very clear.  we cannot say what it is though! it is very difficult to have people to get the feeling of immersion and to take advantage of what that means.  of what nature means.  i think the world is becoming so strict, we are so far away from what nature is and we need it to be alive.  so now you will have anything at home to remind you of what nature is, even if its a pot of tomatoes.

cd + ak:  would you say the artificial is becoming more natural, or that nature is becoming more artificial?  for example parametric modeling that simulates natural growth patterns?

tm:  it will never work.  for instance the 3d computer, i don’t think it’s trying to become more natural i think it is trying to help you in building an artificial environment in a better way, using a better tool to work with.  but it is still artificial, made using a better tool.  so i think artificial has to go very artificial.  it will never become natural and it cannot be in between these things.

– excerpt of the article a conversation with: teresa moller from kerb 19 – paradigms of nature: post natural futures

 

build a path

a young hare

 

 

notes:

[title + text]     Daly, Caitrin, and Adrian Keene. “A Conversation With: Teresa Moller.” Paradigms of Nature: Post Natural Futures. By Caitrin Daly. Melbourne: Melbourne, 2011. 18-23. Print.

[images]     i can’t remember where i came across these photos.  but there are several nice ones from the landscape architect teresa mollers own website.  well worth a visit.

“schinkel entwarf den pavillon im stil einer italienischen villa als streng symmetrischen weißen kubus, dessen fassade lediglich durch eine säulenloggia und dunkelgrüne fensterläden aufgelockert wird. das erste obergeschoss erhielt einen umlaufenden balkon, was der könig als anregung von chiatamone mitgebracht hatte. dieser ist aus eisen, dunkelblau lackiert und wurde auf der unterseite gleichmäßig mit goldenen sternen bemalt.

google earth imagery of karl friedrich schinkel’s neuer pavilion (1825)

 

speaking of introverted buildings.  across from hans kollhoff’s iba project, is the neuer pavilion by schinkel.  its a square structure that sits well behaved at the eastern end of the charlottenburg palace, which happens to be the largest palace in berlin.

since i was virtually touring  the neighborhood surrounding the kollhoff project (you know, as we do now a days), i figured i would take a peak at schinkel’s pavilion.  it happens to be just across the street.  i started by heading south down luisenplatz.  hoping to get a better view of the schinkel’s pavilion i crossed the street and wham, the building was completely shrouded in scaffolding.

it seems kind of appropriate for this small wallflower of a building to hide behind a gauzy white sheath.  in fact, i kind of like it more.  thanks google.

 

a couple steps back

a young hare

 

 

notes:

[title]     comes from a german wiki entry on the neuer pavilion.

[images]     are screen grabs from google earth.

“in 1979 josef paul kleihues has been appointed director of the iba. he organised the exhibition along two distinct themes: iba alt aimed to explore methods of ‘careful urban renewal’, and iba neu for experimenting ‘critical reconstruction’. he invited many international architects including peter eisenman, vittorio gregotti, herman hertzberger, hans hollein, arata isozaki, rob krier, aldo rossi and james stirling. consequently the iba was called by time magazine ‘the most ambitious showcase of world architecture in this generation’.”

hans kollhoff, iba housing project

 

okay, last image taken from the de singel website.  promise.  but i recommend paging through their flickr feed.  there are some great images out there, such as this r&sie(n) project.

as for the above image, i couldn’t help post hans kollhoff’s housing proposal, a modest and introverted structure compared to the rest of the boisterous iba proposals and projects.

 

critical reconstruction

a young hare

 

 

notes:

[title]     comes from this iba wiki entry.

[image]      as stated above, the image comes from the de singel flickr feed.  check it out!

“mimetizando la estrategia del coreógrafo john tiller quien sincronizaba los movimientos de las bailarinas de teatro mediante la unión física de sus cuerpos a finales del siglo XIX, numerosos arquitectos de posguerra buscaron una alianza entre cálculo, estandarización, estética y producción cuyos efectos totales, al igual que sucede con la teoría de la gestalt, fueron superiores a la suma de las partes. los trabajos de arquitectos como edward durrell stone, marcel breuer o egon eierman ejemplifican este método compositivo y constructivo. la repetición estandarizada se convertía en la retórica de la industria, garantizando bajo el mismo paradigma exactitud calculada y variación expresiva.”

egon eiermann, merkur department store (1958-60)

 

can’t seem to find anything about this building.  nor have i found it on google streetview.  bummer.  would be interesting to see how its held up over time.

 

reproduce and repeat

a young hare

 

 

notes:

[title]     comes from circo 163, reproducir y repetir by pep aviles.  this happens to be were i first came across the merkur department store by egon eiermann.

[image]     comes from architecture de cartes postales, which asks the same question: where is this building?!

“rem koolhaas wanted a ‘view filter’ on each side of the hall. the term ‘view filter’ felt totally obvious yet also very vague: a view filter to what degree, with what purpose? to filter out, to tone down, spread light, obscure, fade, bluer what is visible behind it? or to envelope the room, create an aesthetic backdrop for the orchestra, allowing the gaze to sense the outside, to see sky, trees, sculpture and city?”

petra blaisse / inside outside, curtain for casa da musica  (2005)

 

structural curtains by petra blaisse for oma’s casa da musica.

 

open structures

a young hare

 

 

notes:

[title]     Blaisse, Petra. “Curtain as Architecture.” Inside Outside. Rotterdam: NAi, 2007. 374. Print.

[image]     can’t remember exactly where i came across this image, but i would highly recommend looking at all the amazing projects by petra and the folks at inside outside.

“when we start a project, we study the general situation first: the country, the region, the city, the area, the site. it’s important for us to understand as much as possible about the conditions that surround the project …. these conditions can be political, cultural, economic or social, but they are also about issues such as climate, light, sound, planting, local fashion, music, traffic behaviour, architecture or language.”

marieke vanden heuvel, surging garden (2008)

inside outside’s curtain design for the de singel addition.

 

invisible presence

a young hare

 

 

notes:

[title]     Blaisse, Petra. “Curtain as Architecture.” Inside Outside. Rotterdam: NAi, 2007. 18. Print.

[image]      comes from the de singel website.

[more blaisse]     for more of petra blaisse and inside outside’s work check out this old ayh post.

“the theoretical basis of stynen’s work is on the same line with the ideas of le corbusier. his apartment building in wilrijk (1932) was a modest, but well conceived residential unit, long before le corbusier built unité d’habitation in marseille. stynen’s proposal for urban development on the ‘linkeroever’ in antwerp (1932) – a competition that le corbusier also participated in – is totally in line with the ideas of c.i.a.m.”

gerrit op de beeck, trap (1990)

 

leon stynen’s de singel.  i should also note he worked closely on the project with his assistant paul de meyer.

 

share credit

a young hare

 

 

notes:

[title]     comes from the kind folks at de singel.  for more on the history of the institution, the architect and the buildings (new and old) click here.

[image]      also from the de singel website.

“a distancing is employed to speak of something deeply personal in a universal way, placing a screen between the subject and the viewer as a psychological apparatus. these images are also largely about photography itself, an attempt at deconstructing abstraction in an art historical context and painterly manner via the camera.”

marisa baumgartner, visible city (facades II) (2005)

great works by maris baumgartner.  check out her site for more.

 

cities without nature

a young hare

 

 

notes:

[title]     description of marisa’s show at domo gallery.

[image]     for more images by marisa…