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Teaching the Laboratory of the Techniques and Preservation of Modern Architecture (TSAM) at the École Polytechnique Fédéral de Lausanne
No full textMore than a decade ago the TSAM addressed the question of teaching the preservation of modern and contemporary buildings as a new discipline, specifically and radically different from that of new architecture, both in terms of theoretical courses and the contemporary architecture project. It has established a methodology and a practice based on its research that embrace the whole of polytechnic or university education, whether basic or advanced. Finally, the TSAM affirms the richness and the educational power of preservation and its project, and, beyond the subjective feelings and formalistic emotions, base them on an objective and multidisciplinary argumentation combining fine observation of materiality, essential theoretical knowledge and thoughtful creativity
Building High Tatras: dilemma of form Architecture of 1960s and 1970s in the most famous Slovak mountain resort
Get PDFThe High Tatra Mountains are the most prominent alpine center of recreation and sport in Slovakia. The development of this site dates back to the end of the 19th century. From the architectural point of view, the beginning of the 20th century, the 1920s, the 1930s and the post-war period of the 1960s and the 1970s should be considered the most interesting periods. At that time, the most important architectural works were created in the High Tatras, which in different ways dealt with the fundamental question: how to build in the mountains? Through the built results achieved in the region, it is now possible to study the success of this discussion
E.1027: murder and mystery of the camera Gems on the history of the house E.1027 created by Eileen Gray and Jean Badovici
Get PDFThe bouquet of stories related to E.1027, the house built 1926–1929 by the Irish architect and furniture designer Eileen Gray with the support of Jean Badovici, is colorful and intriguing. In “E.1027: Murder and Mystery of the Camera”, gems on the history of the house, new research material and previously unpublished facts related to E.1027 are revealed. Above all, the search for an answer to the question “Which photo camera was used to take the original pictures of E.1027”
E.1027: Maison en bord de mer a prototypical vacation residence
Get PDFThe house by the sea — Maison en Bord de Mer — formed the basis of Eileen Gray’s spatial research, in this case applied to a vacation residence. The subsequent sequences of programmatic and typological researches into summer vacation facilities exemplifies Eileen Gray’s interest in generalizing the comprehension and acceptance of compact places of abode during vacations. Her ability to thoroughly project a comprehensive and mutually supportive program for a large organization such as a vacation center was the ultimate result of these paths of research. Even though the project was never realized, its timing and documentation proves Eileen Gray’s pioneering spirit
Should Le Corbusier’s E.1027 murals be considered as “historical monuments”?
Get PDFLe Corbusier’s murals in E.1027, the famous house designed by Eileen Gray, have been maintained and restored as “historical monuments”. I subscribe to a different view, and shall express it from three perspectives:
• a legal and administrative dimension: only Eileen Gray’s E.1027 is designated a Historical Monument. The murals are not covered by this classification.
• an artistic point of view: Le Corbusier’s murals are detrimental to the original state of the architectural work and to the spirit of the house, they are discordant. The murals, by their mere presence, endanger the architectural work.
• a physical/technical angle: Le Corbusier’s murals themselves are in physical danger
Eileen Gray and the influence of Cubism
Get PDFEileen Gray’s design approach, resulting in the production of her two houses E.1027 and Tempe à Pailla as complete works, could have been influenced by the revolutionary effects of Cubism, in particular Marcel Duchamp’s version “Elementary Parallelism” and some of his later art practices. There are parallels between Gray’s use of purpose-made and standard fittings and Duchamp’s adaptations of mechanisms and his “readymades”. This is discussed in the multiple design fields in which Eileen Gray worked. There is a similarity in her approach to transformable fixed and loose furniture and architecture in the means by which she transforms space
Walter Gropius and Operative History: an Architectural Palimpsest
Get PDFThis essay evaluates the legacy of the pedagogical model set by Walter Gropius and other founders of the Bauhaus on subsequent curricula for schools of architecture. More specifically, it uses Walter Gropius’ views on history as a backdrop for a closer reading of operative history. While at the Bauhaus, Walter Gropius did not initially mandate the teaching of history. Later, as Dean of Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, he re-structured the history sequence as electives, thereby undermining its hitherto central role in what he viewed as a traditional approach to pedagogy that was overly analytical and intellectual. Rather, he encouraged his students to “make history” for themselves.
What are the manifestations of operative history in architecture schools today, and how have they gone beyond references to 20th century Modernism? It is undeniable that there is a concerted effort among contemporary historians to complicate the history of the movement. Nonetheless, the impulse to self edit persists, such that imagery of like minded practitioners converge and sometime eclipse other architectural production
Aldo van Eyck and the Amsterdam playgrounds
Get PDFAldo van Eyck design experiences engendered the development of broader architectural concepts, many of which he further developed in his writings. Aldo van Eyck used various forums to attack an impoverished functionalism that was devoid of qualities such as ambiguity and reversibility. In the history of architecture, it is rare for architects to reflect on their own work, but design and research, writing and building were intrinsic to Aldo van Eyck. He kept on looking for a formal vocabulary to bring the multiple and the general into order and harmony through his architectural assignments. When he set to work at the Amsterdam public works department the opportunity to regenerate the vacant urban spaces in the city arose through the design of an intricate network of playgrounds. This essay will focus on the architectural qualities of these playgrounds
Modern Reuse
Get PDFThe essay is part of an ongoing research work about the heritage of modernism, especially the relationship between material, information and message — projected on the genesis of values and a cultural practice of modern reuse, not least on our present legacy and an upcoming circular society. It examines narratives and developments of modernism, concerning the built environment and industry production, to question modern general principles, systems of values and socio-cultural interrelations. The examination is experimentally grounded on projects both in experimental architecture and discourse, which operate across research, practice and conceptual art — referring to the Bestandsverpflanzung (2008) and the current work with Bauhaus reuse from 2019
Memento mori or eternal Modernism? The Bauhaus at MoMA, 1938
Get PDFOn the occasion of the exhibition which I co-curated at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) with Leah Dickerman in 2009 for the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Bauhaus (and the 80th anniversary of the founding of the museum), I delved into the museum’s archives to shed light on the political context as well as the complex logistics of the museum’s earlier Bauhaus exhibition staged in 1938. The museum’s 1938 book that accompanied that important episode in the early reception of the Bauhaus in America remained the standard work on the school and its art philosophy in the English speaking world until the publication of the English translation of Hans Maria Wingler’s monumental Bauhaus in 1969. This essay, addressing the exhibition staged in New York and the misconceptions about the Bauhaus it set in motion for many years, is based on a lecture I gave at the exhibition symposium; a version of that text was published for the first time in a book of essays published in honor of one of my professors at the University of Cambridge, Jean Michel Massing, in 2016. This is a slightly modified version for the 100th anniversary of the Bauhaus, a decade later