Glass in Architecture - Tugendhat House - Essay Example

Glass in Architecture Describe and discuss how Mies Van der Rohe interpreted glass as a building material in “Tugendhat House” in terms of light and buildings’ relationship to landscape Glass has been used in the process of construction in varying degrees and in varying forms. The kind of usage was earlier limited mostly designing in the most grandiose manner and in buildings constructed for official purposes. Manners, in The Architecture Review (2007) states that the earlier part of the 20th century however saw an increase in the usage of glass in the core process of house design and construction. The idea became part of the core structural and design element in many houses. The reason for the increase in usage is simple. The era saw some of the more experimental home owners and architects along with rapid advances in technology that would allow for experimentation given the fact that glass facilitates natural light. It helps open up a space allowing smaller spaces to look bigger as well as facilitating a natural indoor/outdoor flow, which often enhances the tranquility as well as the value of your home. Glass has other advantages as well given the fact that it is relatively economical and environment friendly-an important consideration in the current era of heightened environmental consciousness. In the earlier part of glass usage, it was ideally believed that glass was brittle and delicate material and thus not really suited for sturdy building needs. Many therefore kept away from core glass usage due to this. Modern glass, however, is not only spectacular to look through but it is safer, stronger and energy efficient. In the past glass was mainly utilized for windows to allow some air and light in to rooms. Today glass is utilized in the construction of several elements of exterior and interior architecture.  Exterior glass architecture includes facades, display windows’ skylights, skywalks, entrances, revolving doors, canopies, winter gardens and conservatories. All of which allow homes to be bathed in natural sunlight with gorgeous outdoor views. Interior glass architecture can be used for staircases, elevated walkways and even as traditional walls. There are some houses in which all of the walls are actually glass. Such high quantities of glass previously compromised other aspects such as the heating and cooling requirements. Often glass architecture would incur high heating costs in winter and cooling costs in summer. Fortunately such great progress has been made in the glass industry that we now have access a variety of different kinds of glass each with fantastic benefits. One such example is glass with spectrally-selective qualities, which allows light to stream into the house without being harmful or degenerative to occupants and their belongings.  The Tugendhat House many argue is reflective of its maker’s personality- it emphasizes and manifests his idiosyncrasies. Hartman and Cigliano (2004) are of the opinion that there is a clear reflection of Mies’s tastes for space, simplicity, and rich materials in the construction of Tugendhat House. The best example of the glass being used interpreted as a building material in terms of light and a relationship with the landscape, the portion of the house on the ground floor is glasses enclosed. The space literally flows interrupted by an occasional partition and is never enclosed. The feeling of movement that this type of an arrangement gives and its ample vistas are enormously stimulating. Piles, (2005) observes, Mies hates cheap materials and for once he has indulged his tastes in the house. There is an onyx wall and the hundred feet of plate glass window with silk curtains to cover them. The Tugendhat House is representative of Mies’s closest approach to the conventional modern façade. The plate glass window, on the ground floor can be lowered by electric motors into the walls, opening up the entire house in good weather thereby making the living spaces practically one with the outdoors. The house itself was located hillside, its entrance and garage at the upper (street level). Bedrooms occupied something resembling a penthouse on the top floor. The main living area on the ground floor as has been stated earlier is mostly an open area subdivided only by an onyx material screen. The idea therefore was to ensure unit with the outside environment while providing privacy to occupants when need be. Huge curtains that covered the removable glass wall achieved this. The image below is one of the better examples of the living room space and the synthesis achieved between the interior and exterior. Fig 1: Living Room: Tugendhat House Mies Van der Rohe was sympathetic to the expressionist ideals that are reflected in glass architecture. He therefore sought to develop a building evolving from inside combining glass with the advantage of new steel framed structures. In his concepts for skyscrapers in Berlin in 1921-22 he explored the ideas of constructing the wall of the building entirely of glass. Glass as a skin would be skipped over the steel structures and the building’s skin and bones would allow the glass to mirror reflect and integrate with the structure rather than conceal it. In fact Mies Van der Rohe prophetically stated, “The use of glass does compel us to go new ways”. Richards and Gilbert, (2006) stated that, Mies Van der Rohe’s ideas for spaiatiality were subsequently explored in the Tugendhat House and the Barcelona Pavilion. Both derived their plan from free flowing space divided by the inner walls as horizontal planes, using the outer glass envelope as a means for the elimination of the visual interruption between the inside and the outside and to try and frame the views. The walls were not entirely glass but were designed with glass as an essential component. They were transparent and at others were made of large full-weight, floor-to-floor ceiling planes. There was also a pursuing of the notion of opening up spaces, ‘destroying the box’ and a destruction of the divide between the interiors and the exterior. Fig 2: The Glass House Rohe’s stress was primarily on the concepts of clarity, rationality, intellectual order and discipline. The idea therefore was to first under the material and then the order of design. Rohe designed a pair of apartment towers known by their address as 860 Lakeshore drive-these were the first glass and steel - residential constructions in the US. Twenty-six stories tall, they were the realization of the concept he first proposed in the glass tower schemes of 1921-22. The advancements in technological capabilities helped the construction of these glass towers. He was also working at designing an all-glass house for Dr Edith Farnsworth, that was to be located on land near the Fox river in Plano Illinois. Design and construction took about six years. The house was raised off the ground because the Fox River occasionally flooded the site and sat as a simple white frame in the landscape as an expression of skin and bones. The glass walls could be screened with white curtains when privacy was desired but the play of light as it reflected off the glass and the immediacy of the natural surroundings viewed through the walls are the more effective unscreened. The house could thus be seen as an expression of an architectural ideal rather than a model for everyday family living. The house in fact carried the concepts of the Tugendhat house to their logical conclusion, losing in the process a certain degree of practicality. Moffet, Fazio and Wodehouse, (2003) write, that the basic style that he followed were actually rather simple and it is in the context of his basic styling concepts that the broader use of glass needs to be understood. He evolved a rational approach to architecture designing universal spaces enclosed in rectangular containers, the most easily used of geometries. From the beginning, he designed with later modification and reuse in mind by making painstaking studies of the exterior architecture expression to ensure a timeless and elegant character. Mies used one of a selection of several steel-framing systems depending on the maximum clear span required. Short-spans would use ordinary columns and beams a the Farnsworth House, Lakeshore House and others in New York city. The villa Tugendhat is a paradigmatic example of functionalism. Mies used the revolutionary iron framework which enabled him to dispense with supporting walls and arrange the interior in order to achieve a feeling of space and light. He also designed all furniture. There were no paintings or decorative items in the villa but the interior was by no means austere due to the use of naturally patterned materials such as the captivating onyx wall and rare tropical woods. The onyx wall is partially translucent and changes appearance when the evening sun is low. The architect also managed to make the magnificent view from the villa an integral part of the interior. "The plan repeats that of the Barcelona Pavilion, the onyx wall and the curved one of Macassar ebony being independent of the cruciform- shaped columns. The floor is of white linoleum, the rug white wool. The curtains are of black and natural raw silk and white velvet. Behind the dining room a double glass partition serves as a light source for the interior space, as in the Barcelona design. The hillside site suggested a two-story scheme with the entry and bedrooms above with the main floor below. Across the living and dining areas the entire wall is of glass. Two of these large panes slide down into pockets as in an automobile window. A terrace and flight of steps connect the house to the garden below. At one end the glass is doubled to provide a narrow conservatory running the depth of the plan. The juxtaposition of geometry with nature is most effective, the simplicity of forms enhancing the natural setting." The Tugendhat Project many believe is a higher density version of Mies van der Rohe’s earlier detached single-family houses. Sherwood (1981) explains that the house utilizes a similar architectural vocabulary of roof plane independently supported in steel columns, floor-to-ceiling glass and freestanding sometimes perpendicular, interior walls and service elements that define a plan characterized as free flowing. The Court Houses on the other hand, unlike Mies earlier freestanding projects are within walled courtyards and thus maintain absolute privacy within the unit. Hawke (2008) believes that Mies van der Rohe’s Tugendhat House marks an important point in the work of its architect. The house is dated 1928-1930 and marks an important point in the exploration of earlier projects as a refined synthesis. At the house Mies van der Rohe translated the abstract perfection of his design for the contemporary Barcelona pavilion, 1029, into one of the most eloquent statements of the potential of new materials and techniques to redefine and transform the nature of the house. in many aspects the Tugendhat House is similar to Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye at Poissy. Rogers (2007) explains the merits of the use of glass in the Tugendhat House. He states that, the most basic resemblance is with respect to the environmental credentials. Due to the glass walls, light would saturate the hall and staircase to the living space on the second floor. The reception area opens through the writing/library space and looks into the glass walls of the plant filled solarium. The wall that separates the living room space from the writing room/library section is a good example of wall as decoration. Here a floor to ceiling tan golden onyx wall four inches thick forms the backdrop separating the two spaces. Translucent, it can glow in different tones with differing light. Fig 3: Explaining the glass window panes Mies states in this respect, “we can see the new structural principles most clearly when we use glass in place of the outer walls, which is feasible today since in a skeleton building these outer walls do not actually carry weight. The use of glass imposes new solutions…I discovered by working with actual glass models that the important thing is the play of reflections and not the effect of light and shadow as in ordinary buildings”. Mies discussion of the design was scheduled in terms of structure and its expression, of ‘new forms’ developing from ‘new problems’ rather than from any argument in favor of environmental benefits that might have been bestowed by glass envelope. He was thus more interested in the reflections of light off the envelope and not its passage into the interior of the building as an environmental service. His was not a practical proposal regarding environment management but a poetic paradox of the glass box that is not about the transmission of light. Fierro, (2003) accepts the fact that Mies’s union of the technological and the monumental synthesized much of the nineteenth century German architectural theory dominated by the discourse of the tectonic. By raising the expression of construction, especially of steel construction, especially of steel construction to a heightened spiritual level, Mies collapsed discussions of such figures Wolf, Heinzerling, and Lotze, that had long pondered over the relationship between objective expression of new technologies and subjective expression of art. Glass for Mies, as for Taut was the primary means to negotiate the tenuous relationship to nature. Mies glass panel held discretely within a trabeated frame derived from the austere classical tradition he inherited from Schinkel and Behrems, controlled the view, and simultaneously sealed the interior hermetically from the exterior. Mies kept the architectural work in precise opposition to its natural surround. From the Tugendhat House the use of glass in building increased dramatically as far as Mies’s work was concerned. Speyer (1968), states, "The plan repeats that of the Barcelona Pavilion, the onyx wall and the curved one of Macassar ebony being independent of the cruciform- shaped columns. The floor is of white linoleum, the rug white wool. The curtains are of black and natural raw silk and white velvet. Behind the dining room, a double glass partition serves as a light source for the interior space, as in the Barcelona design. The hillside site suggested a two-story scheme with the entry and bedrooms above with the main floor below. Across the living and dining areas, the entire wall is of glass. Two of these large panes slide down into pockets as in an automobile window. A terrace and flight of steps connect the house to the garden below. At one end, the glass is doubled to provide a narrow conservatory running the depth of the plan. The juxtaposition of geometry with nature is most effective, the simplicity of forms enhancing the natural setting." In conclusion, it may be stated that Mies was one of those who could be credited with the innovation and radical reform in architecture as far as conventional thought about the use of glass in building is concerned. His signature style as far as Tugendhat House is concerned was one that was characterized by the formations of open spaces with glass walls all around. The idea therefore was the use of a material that is different to get out of the ‘box’ syndrome in architecture. This would automatically lead to opening spaces and the intermingling of the exterior with the interior- a synthesis of the natural environment within the house. Externally the structure would look like it was painted black, so that it would become an unobtrusive element. The best way to understand his style of abstract architecture through the use of glass is the use of the term minimalist wherein extreme care was given to the simple detailing of the structure and a subtle sense of proportion giving the building a sense of being serene and part of its surroundings- comparable and perhaps inspired by ancient Greek architecture. Reference: Gilbert B and Richards D, New Glass Architecture, pub, Yale University Press, p16-17 Moffett M, Fazio M W, Woodhouse L, 2003, A world history of architecture, pub, McGraw Hill Publications, 519-522 Hawke D, The environmental imagination: techniques and poetics of the architectural world, pub, Routledge, pp34-40 Fierro A, The glass state: the technology of the spectacle, Paris, 1981-1998, pub, MIT Press, pp198-200 Sherwood R, Modern Housing Prototypes, pub, A1 books, pp42-45 Rogers S, Brno’s Tugendhat House Gem: Architectural residential design: Light and the Modern Home, accessed October 9, 2009, A. James Speyer, 1968, Mies van der Rohe, pub, Chicago, Hillison and Etten, p42 Hartman G E and Cigliano J, 2004, Pencil points reader: a journal for the drafting room, pub, Princeton Architectural Press, pp425-427 Manners S, 2007, The Use of Glass in Architecture, pub, The Architecture Review, accessed October 9, 2009, < http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Use-of-Glass-in-Architecture&id=127055> Pile J F, 2005, A history of interior design, pub, Laurence King Publishing, pp330-332 Read More