seeing space
rooms. In the Haberfeld Country House and Fleischner House in Haifa in northern Israel (both unrealized but similar in their spatial layouts), there is a special raised podium, with stairs ascending at its edges. This plith presents itself to the main living area of the house. One could imagine the use of this podium as a stage element, with performers coming and going theatrically by way of the stair. A dramatic performance-like space can be seen in the unbuilt Josephine Baker House planned for Paris in 1926. In this instance, the performative volume is manifest as a swimming tank, conceptualized as a space within the volume of the house. Planned as an aquatic theatre for Josephine to entertain guests, patrons could see their host as they entered from street level via a grand stair, then engage a system of narrow galleries wrapping the pool’s mid-section with underwater viewing portals.These galleries would have led to a cylindrical cafe where guests would meet Josephine, then move to the third level for dining and conversation. In this example, the theatrical volume of space (the pool) is the dominant factor of the architecture, a place where Josephine could exercise feminine control of the domestic environment.
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Loos Maquettes The three-dimensional maquettes presented on the following pages investigate 17 of Loos’s most radical domestic works. Students of the course inverted (space into form) beginning at the entry and moving to the most public areas of these houses. Three-dimensional computer models were created by first drawing conventional plans and sections then using the orthographic model to construct a separate volumetric solid. The resulting form (after clearling away the digital formwork) were 3D printed on a power prototyping machine. In the spirit of Rachel Whiteread’s inversion of form into readible space, the resulting objects reveal themselves as volumetric imprints exposing the limits of Loos’s room arrangements. These castings allow a chance for us to inspect closely the balance of habitable mass against slim surface features.