History and theory of contemporary architecture

HISTORY AND THEORY OF

CONTEMPORARY ARCHITECTURE

A.Y. 2020/2021

2nd semesterr 1

HISTORY AND THEORY OF CONTEMPORARY ARCHITECTURE

LECTURE 1 22/02/2021

prof. Luka Skansi

01 Introduction: Raumkunst; general introduction to the course

Architecture and space

The course addresses its attention to the evolution of the notion of space in architecture and urbanism, from the

end of the 19th century till the 1970s. Space is a word tht we always use to describe our projects and characterize

our normal communication and expressions. Space i sas well a volatile word, so we will try to understand what is

the meaning of <<space>>. We are going to see how architects dealt with this definition through the years. We

start with the 19th century, when this word was firstly used as a way of describing a product. 1920 and 1930

were the years of the explosion of this word in the architecture field.

On the other side, this relationship between architecture and space is parallel to other critical observations;

functional and rationalistic approach, evolving then into a more sensorial approach.

In some kind of way, this aspect is not really a contemporary vision when speaking about architecture; in the

recent decades we are used to consider architecture as a “negligent” object, as it lost its significance when giving

format to the city, when giving a footprint. Architecture started with cultural buildings-such as museums, theaters,

etc..- which were shaping the city and the civilization. Recently, <<form>> (as a concept) is rising again, it came

back as an element of formality for contemporary architecture. So what we are witnessing is the passage between

the decease of architecture in the old times and the sudden rising in the contemporary years-so, we are observing

the missing spot between those two passages. We will try to understand and look to the history of this format, to

its kind of dialectic. If we use the term of spatiality we are talking about a specific dialectic on architecture’s field.

Dialectic between architecture and space, its context, the relationship within the city, all of this through

 the decades.

The spatial component of architecture, its theoretical conceptuon and its practical realisation, constituted during

the 20th century one of the main issues of modernity in architecture.

Experiencing space through empathy and sensitivity



The various “forms” of space produced by architects, artists and urbanists reflected the different answers to

historical, sociological and aesthetical questions that aroused in different contexts in the decades following the

modernist revolution.

During the semester the development of the spatiality of form will be analyzed through a series of lectures,

seminars, readings and field trips. From Camillo Sitte to Le Corbusier, from Russian Constructivism to Dutch

Neoplasticism, from Mies van der Rohe to Louis Kahn, from Frank Lloyd Wright to Bruno Zevi, from Luigi Moretti

to Carlo Scarpa, from the spatial experiments of the Team X to those of the 1960’s utopias, from the American

Minimal and Land art to the Yugoslavian Monumental architecture, the course will address its inquiry to the mutual

influences between the aesthetic of art, architecture, sociology, technology and history.

Such as the city of Venice, where modernity and old styles combine together into formalism and experience,

urban space. The word of architecture + historical urban space. We are keeping them within this

confrontation/dialectic between, as said, dialectic and space.

We will try (in the 2nd part of the semester) to gete different examples of the spatial research with Wright, following

the spirit of formalisation. We will see the primordial architecture of Latin American, combined with modern times.

We will analyze the great members of italian tradition, such as Moretti and Scarpa. Then we’ll see the post-war

period, where the sensibility of space got explored in a larger scale, social issues, relation with a spontaneous

birth and modularity of space (Team X-read as “ten”). Last but not least, we will take a glimpse to more parallel

experiences, where the notion of space/sensitivity reaches a different evolution and approach, within the Land art

in America, and the Constructivism architecture in Jugoslavia: a relationship between the object and nature itself.

We will learn how to deal with space with the idea of this constant relation.

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Three basic components of the experience of space: what wee can describe as “spatiality”, the man-the

 subject who is perceveing it all-, the architecture/artistic object, thee artifact, and the context-the city, or

nature.

1. The man

2. The object of architecture (as object of art)

3. The environment

If we split this trio, we are off the rails and not able to understand the whole phenomena.

First exercise: dedicated to catch some of the elements of sculpture, to understand the spatial element of

architecture/sculpture.

Second exercise: concrete analysis of architectural space.

Those two exercise will constitute the premisis to enter the exam session. It will be oral and you will be asked to

comment the projects seen in the program, and discuss them, under the relation of space.

First exercise is individual.

Next lecture we will see specifically the theme of light, movement, seen through the history of sculpture. You will

be asked to work on the sculptures which are in your country, into the galleries. The idea is to make you work on

the tradition of your country. Even the urban installation.

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The concept of light as an action of plasmation. You will have to choose a series of sculpture and comment them,

the concept, the main spatial elements.

What is surface in sculpture, its linguistic expression, concept, how important it was. The treatment of surface

changes the perception of materiality, thus the object is perceived differently. The material makes visible some

things and tries to hides other. The theme of colour, the scale…

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Second part of the semester: what is memory in architecture, its sensibility, the dimensions, the evolution of

formality. 5

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START OF THE ACTUAL LECTURE

Today we will see the concept of <<RAUMKUNST>>.

SPACE-RAUMKUNST

The birth of the concept

<<Our sense of space (Raumgefuhl) and spatial imagination (Raumphantasie) press towards spatial creation

(Raumgestaltung); the seek their satisfaction in art. we call this art architecture; in plain words, it is the creatress

of space (Raumgestalterin).>>

-August Schmarsow, “Das Wesen der architektonischen Schopfung”, 1894

Why those words became the element of architectural theory? Let’s see through examples.

“The tower which fell down”

Adolf Hildebrand

The first example we see is by Adolf Hildebrand, who talks about his trip to Italy at the beginning of the century

(around the last decade of the 19th century and then again at the beginning of the 20th century). He was shocked

at the immediate transformation between the two decades; he arrived to Florence and assisted to a complete

transformation of the urban condition of this space in front of the church. Medieval Florence is dense, with narrow

streets, while after the transformation some medieval parts were demolished, the streets got enlargened… the

closing of the Baptistery got demolished, leaving it to an open view, but leaving it sort of alone (the monument).

The details around the church were occasionally shown, the space around the city was cleaned. Some elements

were completley altered.

He concentrates mostly on the “Porta del Paradiso” by Ghiberti, especially on the door’s detail; it was memant

to be perceived from a narrow distance, so the change of scenario changed its perception as well-as a matter of

perspective and comprehension of space. Demolishing this scenario, the baptistery got completely isolated,

perhaps the door as well lost its full power of influence.

In 1902 the tower in San Marco square (Venice) fell down, so again he was confronted with a big architectural

loss. He says, trying to draw sketches, that the perception of the square was totally modified and looked like the

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house where the cat is out, and mices are free to

wander (paraphrasing about the procurative). The

architectures were made in different times and

perhaps styles, so they all breathe the atmospheres

of different epoques. The merging element was, in

fact, the bell tower.

This element represented the merging and

 connection of the architectures present in

the square, so its loss meant a loss of a

merging among those different styles.

We must always consider the spatial context +

genius loci of the environment.

<<There is an intimate relationship between the

character of the buildings and their spatial context.>>

The spatiality of the form is, for Hildebrand, a “sensibility” that has been lost “with the development of museums

and the conventions of considering works of art out of their original context, as individual, isolated.”

And the most difficult task of his present is to “open people’s eyes to the general law of all art, namely that the

work of art is always conceived as a part of something larger, as part of a situation (…) An artistic building is not

valid solely in its own terms, but as part of an environment.

The stronger this double life is, the wider the field of action of the single image (Lebensraum des Einzelbildes) will

be, and the greater, in turn, its artistic value will be.”

Thanks to the museums, for him, we started observing artworks and paintings, murals-as a museum is a

remembrance of humanity’s footprints on this world, perhaps is a trace of physical memory.

An artistic building is a proof of humanity. It is not valid only as a volumetrical element, but we can only understand

it in a larger perspective, conceiveing space + sensitivity.

Architecture + environment= necessity to the full comprehension of a building.



1908, Albert Brinckman:

He does something that historian don’t do often. He described the

sequence on how we get to this space, which is Santa Maria della Pace

square, how it is perceived from different distances (perspective of space).

The façade presents a semicircular space, decorated with double columns

(colonne binate) in couples.

He also tried to document the relationship between man and sculpture

and the architectural context.

In this illustration, it’s shown the perspective effect on Michelangelo’s

Campidoglio square.

1877, Hermann Maerstens: “Das optische Masstab” (“the optical scale”): architecture as to scales: the drawn

one, on paper, and the optical scale, in reality.

how we perceive things. We perceive things in three different moments/relational points/dinamics:

1. When we are looking from a certain distance, looking at the entirety of the sculpture while perceiving the

context 8

2. We get closer, and observe the sculpture in its figure, we get a

clearer understanding of the figure

3. We get very close, and we are able to observe every detail with

attention.

Every step gives us a perception of the same sculpture, but seen under

three aspects, which allow us to three different perceptions.

The sculpture

1908, Vienna Joze Plecnik, Saint Charles Borromeo

fountain:

he was Otto Wagner’s pupil from Lubiana. He was very

talented and this fountain is one of his artifacts. It’s

composed by two green semioval (ellissoidali) figures

combined together, in a centre oval space. In the planimetry

on the side you can observe a series of diagonal lines, that

represent three different moments of the perception of this

sculpture and how it was conceived.

You must consider that this was the angle/corner where it

was conceived to be placed. We cross 5 steps and then we

find a circular space with an obelisc in the middle.

It is possible to perceive the sculpture under the said three

different aspects, as the observer gets closer to it. First, you

get a general perception of the sculpture inserted in the urban

context, then the figure of the sculpture itself, and finally all

the details. In the pics, you can see the very detailed

decorations, lizards with wings, cherubins…. 9

The squares

1889, Vienna, Camillo Sitte: “Der Stadtebau nach seinen Kunstlerischen Grundsatzen”:

meaning “the building of the city” (stadtebau) to his artistic and formal principles. He explained the spatial effects

that an observer can have in some of the major architectural spaces in italian, german and austrian spaces.

He describes the Sant’Antonio square in Padova, telling that the observer can

understand the façade only from one angle, at first; the more you enter the square, the

more the façade is revealed and exposed. The dimension of the square is perfectly

congruent to the space where this building is located, so it’s a nice architecture in terms

of relation between space and evnironment.

The San Marco square in Venice is an agglomeration of different moments and

architectural glimpses. There is no priviliged view. The space is urban but semiprivate.

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The city of Vienna, based on rings disposition.

The city developed a lot in the 19th century. The

operation was to cancel the walls and transorm the

space in a new urban centre, a multifunctional

arteria, combining the growth of the new city within

the old ones, keeping up with the progress. Coule

de sac.

The scale of the city exploded and became bigger.

The monuments have different styles, neo baroque,

neo gothic, neo classicism…different agglomerate

of objects within this new space.

The biggest debate about the ring was if the larger

scale was led to loose its architectural complexity.

Thus, one book of Sitte is dedicated to the

correction-in his own opinion- of the new scale’s operations. For example, he changed the scale around the

church.

The sketches

Le Corbusier tries to understand architecture under the urban scale,

measuring the feelings of a space through a sketch. 11

SPACE-BAROQUE

Many books have been published during these years.

Baroque was seen as a retrograde action towards the

development of art and architecture, as it was seen as

a deformation betweeen the relation of man and

architecture.

Wolfflin: he said that it had a psichological effect on

man, as architecture gives reactions to our

senses/perceptions. It gives us happiness, anxiety,

claustrophobia..

And Baroque, in this topic, has a different perception.

Baroque is a change, on five aspects:

1. From a linear to a painterly style (malerisch)

2. From an epoch characterized by

representation in planes to an epoch

characterized by representation in depth

3. From an epoch characterized by closed forms to one of open forms

4. From artworks made by parts of equal value, to artworks in which the individual elements are

subordinared to a whole

5. From a style in which objects are represented with absolute clarity to one in which they are depicted in a

style of relative clarity. In the pic, San

Pietro in

Montorio and

San Carlino alle

quattro fontane,

Rome.

What is structural? What is not? -The effect of the presence of the shadow-

<<Painterly architecture is particularly interested in making its basic form appear in as many and as various

pictures as possible. While in the classic style the permanent form is emphasized and the variation of the

appeareance has beside it no indepent value, the composition

Light becomes the element of expression of art, a light which gives birth to shadow, and thus shapes the

 façade.

<<the more manifold they are, the more the diverge from the objective form, the more painterly the building is

considered to be>> 12

Light is not accidental, it has the precise purpose to shape the element-the

light and its shadow, the architecture and its context, the tridimensionality

and the materiality perceived from this relation of aspects.

(on the right, Borromini’s detail on the Palazzo di Propaganda Fide)

The individual perspective is no longer the preliminary to the architectural image but has its own significance. It

exists together with the other separate images as a partial representation.

-Paul Frankl

The analysis that we do is an accumulation of data. An optical sequence that architecture gives us.

<<Optical appearance is now primary not only for the impression (receptively) but also genetically. The corporeal

forms exist only to carry the visible phenomena. They serve light, not the reverse as in the first phase (the

Renaissance).>>

-Frankl 13

LECTURE 2 1/3/21

Biography: he will upload some of the materials and books he put in it.

Continue of the previous lecture

(This morning is going to be divided into 2 sections, taking back from the Raumkust of last week to then focus on

the first exercise, under the spatial reading of the sculpture. He will show us a series of art pieces.)

THE THEMES OF ART

We went through a series of authors and theories of architecture and art, interested in this topic. We saw that

there is a growing sensibility towards those specific questions (see previous lecture). The principal question was

to educate our vision to the sensibility of space. When designing in a specific territory we are using a specific

language + form. We analized different datas and ideas given by the form and the way of observing the art piece.

This is Raumkunst: the art of space.

Those books were fundamental to future artists as we saw, such as Le Corbusier, Rohe, Moretti… so this aspect

was institutionalized.

Psychologically, the intuited form of three dimensional space arises trough the experiences of our sense of sight,

whether or not assisted by other physiological factors. All our visual perceptions and ideas are arranged, are

ordered, and unfold in accordance with this intuited form- and this fact is the mother lode of art whose origin we

seek.

Our sense of space (Raumgefuhl) and spatial imaginatiion (Raumphantasie) press towards spatial creation

(Raumgestaltung); they seek their satisfaction in art. we call this art architecture; in plain words, it is the creatress

of space (Raumgestalterin).

-August Schmar