Man protagonist of his experience _ Acting on the space: the Maison de Verre

Serena Milanesi

Man, protagonist of his experience Acting on the space: the Maison de Verre

Politecnico di Milano Scuola di Architettura, Urbanistica, Ingegneria delle Costruzioni MSc in Architecture of Interiors A.Y. 2016 / 2017

History&Theory of Architecture Professor: IrĂŠnĂŠe Scalbert

Theme: Experience

Student: Serena Milanesi 862572

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play

Each building is characterized by some elements like doors, windows and gates that could be directly controlled and adjusted by man with his hands and body, in those moments man has the power to change the space around him thanks to his physical action and his participation.

This happens when man interacts with architectural mechanisms through his muscles with unpredictable and unusual movements, sometimes even playful, or when his acting transcends practical and functional purposes. This underlines that man can have a real influence on the world and that his experience can modify and shape the space.

Since the first infants’ gestures man has been attracted to aesthetically pleasing objects, which can be manipulated, such as toys that can take different forms and can be directly and personally transformed. Every manipulation assures the child that he can act and have a creative impact on the world.

An example is the doll house, which is not a simple object to be observed passively, it can be seen like a real arena within which a child can practise his personal influence. In those moments, the child can feel himself emotionally involved and stimulated to take care and to feel affection for a highly reactive object due to his direct participation in his world.

The ever-changing effects caused by direct human influence in space do not lose meaning at the end of childhood, but they are vital for all ages because of their main motivation which is, according to Karl Groos 1, to find “the joy of being a cause”.2 This is possible when exploring the hidden mutation of things that change and reveal that man is the creator of these effects. If man felt completely passive, a simple object, he would feel deprived of his own will and identity. A man should acquire the feeling of having influence on something, to be able to do something and feel himself efficient, active, and competent.

Man’s experience in space is therefore the proof of his effective existence in the world.

As stated by Henry Plummer 3 in his book The Experience of Architecture “The movable elements of architecture, those that we can directly transform with the power of hands and imagination, can keep a track of the game that can be found in toys, which transcends useful functions and satisfies the fundamental human need to be the source of action” .4 On the cover: Go up the stairs Pierre Chareau & Bernard Bijvoet, Maison de Verre (1931)

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move

However, these flexible elements, such as doors and windows, can produce a real human action and experience only when they are not reduced, as often happens today, to monotonous and obvious objects with habitual and predictable movements or when their mutations are only due to electric current or a manipulation of buttons.

“Man’s feeling of having an impact on his world and the power to transform it is given by the metamorphic elements of buildings that can be driven by the human body”.5 In architecture, in fact, there are elements of transformation that have the potential to change profoundly and modular accurately the atmosphere hovering in a space. These elements can modify shadows, light, sounds and smells and can change the relationship with the surrounding space.

Undefined kinetic components, on which people can act, reflect and work, are very important for architectonic constructions, because they are in close relation to the value and the necessity of playing at all ages of life. Like the freedom of action, in fact, the game is innately dialectical and can be considered as an interaction between people and the world.

There have been numerous architects who, during the twentieth century, investigated this theme designing spaces where man has a prominent role with his power to change the space through his physical action. An example is Pierre Chareau and Bernard Bijvoet 6 with their Maison de Verre in Paris, characterized by a thick net of moving screens.

The casual power of humans on the space is made clear by the bewildering, but also enchanting, movements of a lot of members of the Maison de Verre. Hand-held handled items, like doors, windows, screens and wardrobes, carry out practical work, but at the same time they offer a surprise moment that transcends their main purpose.

The Maison de Verre was built in 1931 with the aim of combining the functions of a medical clinic with those of a private home, in a quiet and secluded area of Paris. The house used various industrial and mechanical fixtures juxtaposed with a traditional style of home furnishings all under the transparency and lightness of the façade. A skeleton frame steel construction allowed a free plan and the use of omnipresent lightweight materials, such as glass and glass blocks.

On the left: Pass through the levels

Pierre Chareau & Bernard Bijvoet, Maison de Verre (1931) 5

rotate

However, the need to separate the home from the medical clinic and to give more light to a small and fragmented urban lot, preserving the privacy, gave rise to a complex drawing of the interiors. The living room with a double-height library is the most prominent space and is characterized by suspended tunnels, adjustable skylights and tie-beams on sight.

“The Maison de Verre seems an elaborate piece of ironware or a modern furniture with moving parts”.7 An interesting aspect of this house in fact is the ubiquitous mechanical fixtures and the use of sliding, folding, and rotating screens in glass, sheet or perforated metal that allow a spatial division inside. These mechanical elements are characterized by an unexpected beauty given by their motion that enhances their function by transforming them in an event full of charm.

About this Kenneth Frampton wrote that “The mechanization of the Maison de Verre was extensive and [..] economically conceived and precisely executed [..] the mobility permeates every detail of this house”.8 One interesting aspect of the maison is that all the components are not only modular but interchangeable so to yield a mobility dependent upon a potential for modification and replacement rather than movement per se.

A peculiar aspect of this house is the entrance on the ground floor where there was the owner’s medical suite and the stairs leading to the private home. This unusual circulation arrangement was resolved by a rotating screen which hid the private stairs from patients during the day, but framed the stairs at night.

Consequently, the pivotal radial door to the landing of the main stair is necessary to separate the private accommodation from the medical suite, while the sliding wall to the salon conveniently isolates the doctor’s study from the main living space. Moreover, a perforated metal butterfly screen makes translucent the transparent main stair enclosure; each element of the house in fact has the aim to provide a different degree of lyrical variation. Other mechanical components include an overhead trolley from the kitchen to the dining room, a retracting stair from the private sitting room to a bedroom, and a complex of bathroom cupboards and fittings.

On the left: Open the windows

Pierre Chareau & Bernard Bijvoet, Maison de Verre (1931) 7

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The operation of mechanical elements is neither obvious nor predictable, a man is in fact obliged to approach and analyze the object and its details to understand its movement, with disbelief and euphoria. People are also surprised by the weight and the consistency of each mechanism and by its unpredictable movements that often involve fingers, arms, shoulders and torso.

Overall the Maison de Verre is characterized by a space that is never rigidly defined because its elements are free to act and to move in different and original ways and because they do not only have a single function. However, the movement is present, but in a latent form, since each mechanism requires human intervention; only man, in fact, can put it into motion and guide it in its trajectory. In this way, the action and the experience of man become the protagonists and the object of attention.

Chareau and Bijvoet’s architecture “thanks to its miraculous and not obvious movements makes people protagonists of their experience in the space”.9 Architecture in fact is not something that man can look from far away or use only for his practical and functional needs and in the Maison the Verre this concept is clearly understandable. We should see architecture like man’s life catalyst who lives and acts in harmony with the world.

Buildings have the property to promote or undervalue spontaneous attitudes of humans to act in the space, this is an essential aspect of architecture which is unfortunately often underestimated. These movements occur each time a man decides how to occupy the place where he is, how to move inside or how to modify it directly. They arise from simple actions such as opening a door or closing a window, climbing the stairs or crossing a bridge... Unfortunately, today man no longer realizes that he does these actions, because they have become predictable, insignificant and repetitive.

However, there are situations where architecture transforms these simple habits into satisfying and fascinating events and into real actions where a man is invited to act in a creative way. When a man doesn’t follow passively the directions forced by a space, but he transforms the habits into actions, he becomes the protagonist of the space himself, he can

On the left: Slide the wall Pierre Chareau & Bernard Bijvoet, Maison de Verre (1931) 9

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take personal initiative and produce effects and he can be the author of his acting.

Architecture is not simply an object that expresses personal or cultural values or which satisfies an aspiration for success, but, like the French philosopher Gaston Bachelard 10 defines in his book: The poetic of the space, it is also the territory in which the “passionate bond of our body” takes shape in the world.

Consequently, we should try to understand if architecture defines human behavior or, on the contrary, it gives that power to individuals allowing them to control their actions in the space. It depends, buildings on one hand can deny people the opportunity to decide their own actions in the space and limit them when choosing from different available experiences; on the other hand, they may also provide man with the opportunity to decide his possibilities and experiences. Architectural constructions have an essential role in allowing us to participate in everyday life without erasing our individuality, because “no other art is so intimately tied to man’s everyday life, from its beginning to its end”.11 Even if the experience of making choices and decisions has been always studied from philosophical, psychological, social and political points of view, it is also intimately linked to and it depends on the physic space. As Henry Plummer argues in his text: The Experience of Architecture “If action is fundamental to human beings, it is also important and necessary for architecture, because the buildings in which we live in are our primary source of spontaneous action” .12 How do architectural constructions have an influence on people destined to occupy them and how do architectural forms influence space actions? There are specific architectural works, ranging from urban level to detail, that encourage or paralyze man’s decision- faculties. The architect should shape the space in a way that other individuals can make the most of their existence as human beings. We should reconsider architecture from the point of view of spontaneous actions and understand how man interacts with the space. Overall, we should start to see architecture as a set of possibilities that humans can explore and discover and not just as a useful aesthetic object; architecture is in fact a powerful tool whose possibilities exclude a simple contemplative vision or a functional use.

On the left: Move the screen Pierre Chareau & Bernard Bijvoet, Maison de Verre (1931) 11

“L’ambiente che ci circonda ci offre continue possibilità di esperienza, oppure ce le riduce. Il significato umano fondamentale dell’architettura proviene da ciò. [...]

L’azione personale può spalancare nuove possibilità di arricchire l’esperienza o può precluderne; o agisce prevalentemente in modo da convalidare, rassicurare, incoraggiare, sostenere, favorire, oppure in modo da invalidare, rendere incerti, scoraggiare, minare, reprimere.

Può essere creativa o distruttiva. [...]

Se siamo privati dell’esperienza siamo defraudati dei nostri atti; e se i nostri atti ci sono, per così dire, sottratti come giocattoli dalle mani dei bambini, siamo privati della nostra umanità.”

Ronald D. Laing La politica dell’esperienza

“The environment around offers us continuous possibilities of experience, or it reduces them.

The fundamental human meaning of architecture comes from this [...]

Personal action can open new possibilities to enrich the experience or preclude it; it can act primarily to validate, reassure, encourage, support, promote, or invalidate, render uncertain, discourage, undermine, or suppress.

It can be creative or destructive [...]

If we are deprived of experience we are deceived by our acts; and if our acts are, to speak, stripped as toys from the hands of children, we are deprived of our humanity.” 13

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Notes 1

Karl Groos (1861-1946) was a philosopher and psychologist who proposed an evolutionary in-

strumentalist theory of play which suggested that play is a preparation for later life.

2

Groos Karl, The Play of Man, Appleton & Co., New York, 1901, p. 295.

3

Henry Plummer (1960) is a Professor Emeritus of Architecture at the University of Illinois and

a writer of essays on architecture.

4

Plummer Henry, The Experience of Architecture, Thames & Hudson Ltd, London 2016, p. 68.

5

Plummer Henry, The Experience of Architecture, Thames & Hudson Ltd, London 2016, p. 69.

6

Pierre Chareau (1883-1950) was a French designer and architect; Bernard Bijvoet (1889-1979)

was a Dutch architect.

7

Curtis William J. R., L’architettura moderna dal 1900, Phaidon, London 2006, p. 268.

8

Frampton Kenneth, Maison de Verre, in “Perspecta 12: The Yale Architectural Journal”, 1969, p. 80.

9

Plummer Henry, The Experience of Architecture, Thames & Hudson Ltd, London 2016, p. 98.

10

Bachelard Gaston (1884-1962) was a French philosopher who made contributions in the fields

of poetics and the philosophy of science.

11

Rasmussen Steen Eiler, Architettura come esperienza, Pendragon, Bologna 2006, p. 32.

12

Plummer Henry, The Experience of Architecture, Thames & Hudson Ltd, London 2016, p. 19.

13

My translation of: Laing Ronald D., La politica dell’esperienza, Feltrinelli, Milano 1977.

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Bibliography Bachelard Gaston, La poetica dello spazio, Dedalo, Bari 1989.

Chipperfield David, Theoretical Practice, British Library, London 1994.

Curtis William J. R., L’architettura moderna dal 1900, Phaidon, London 2006.

Dostoevskij Fëdor, Memorie dal sottosuolo, Einaudi, Torino 2005.

Giedion Sigfried, Space, Time and Architecture, Harvard University Press, Cambridge 1941.

Groos Karl, The Play of Man, Appleton & Co., New York 1901.

Kepes György, Il linguaggio della visione, Dedalo, Bari 1990.

Laing Ronald D., La politica dell’esperienza, Feltrinelli, Milano 1977.

Plummer Henry, The Experience of Architecture, Thames & Hudson Ltd, London 2016.

Rasmussen Steen Eiler, Architettura come esperienza, Pendragon, Bologna 2006.

Zumthor Peter, Atmospheres, Birkhauser, Basel 2006.

Frampton Kenneth, Maison de Verre, in “Perspecta, Vol. 12: The Yale Architectural Journal”, 1969.

Moravia Alberto, from the front matter of “Memorie del sottosuolo”, Rizzoli, Milano 2000.

Pictures credits Cover: Maison de Verre _ Stairs, 2013, photo by Francois Halard.

Page 4: Maison de Verre _ Living room, 2013, photo by Francois Halard.

Page 6: Maison de Verre _ Glass blocks wall, 2013, photo by Francois Halard.

Page 8: Maison de Verre _ Perforated screen, 2013, photo by Francois Halard.

Page 10: Maison de Verre _ Mobile panels, 2013, photo by Francois Halard.

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