By Hugh Michelmore
ABSTRACT:
Minimalism as a generative architectural approach has been criticised by Post-Structuralist theory implying that no worth or value can adequately derive from purist, formalist and reductive architectural expressions. It’s critics argue the minimalist approach promotes only the perfection of architectural technique rather than addressing the need for imparting meaning or value in architecture. This papers aims to analyse the methodologies employed by minimalist architects, and their earliest influences, to manifest meaning in their work. The late Charles Correa’s Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown typifies the methods of valuable minimalist expression by incorporating the picturesque and narrative communication into his work. An examination of the key progenitors of minimalism and modernism — Mies Van Der Rohe and Le Corbusier — reveals the strategies utilised by those adhering to minimalist principles. Furthermore, by analysing the extent to which more recent proponents of minimalist art, such as Richard Serra, impart meaning through non-traditional structural expression, framing of the external context, and the celebration of human-interaction with architecture and art. By this they, perhaps seemingly unknowingly, align themselves with the early 19th Century art movement of the picturesque. Yves‐Alain Bois in his article A Picturesque Stroll around Clara Clara (1984) determines this meaning derives from the human‐interaction of the qualities of Richard Serra’s Clara Clara, which produces a value through asserting an experience of the picturesque. John MacArthur expands on this notion in The Picturesque identifying experiential and narrative qualities of early champions of minimalism. Establishing a framework and verbal structure of minimalist value, this paper examines how successful minimalist architectural vernacular in the 21st Century can be. It expresses or embraces techniques of minimalist value by the amplifying context, human occupation, and narrative movement through space.
Every architect attempts to instil or manifest meaning upon or within their work — though the methods and manifestation by which the intents of the architect are expressed are vastly different —it remains throughout architectural history one of the core motivators behind producing architecture of significance. The vast array of architectural styles created since the inception of the profession are an indication of the, sometimes elusive, nature of identifiable architectural methodologies that intend to reveal value in architecture. However, these can be collected, collated and analysed to determine the key approaches which imparts meaning within an architectural movement. This is the aim of this paper. To examine the practices employed by minimalist architects and influences of minimalist architects in the modern era to determine a framework of practices that typify the expression of meaning in minimalism. What methodologies an architectural style, or school of thought, upholds to be fundamental and most paramount is the most vital driver behind the appearance of architectural form and function. This is where meaning is driven into and therefore embodied in a building by process, it is not within any given formal gesture or particular column type, but by the values surrounding the process of creation of those simple fundamental architectural elements.
Some such methodologies can be explicit, obvious even, as typical architectural vernacular that has been theorized to contain unambiguous meaning. With Vitruvius and thinkers alike him proselytizing concepts of divinity in architecture, a series of epochs motivated primarily with appealing to the divine and the sublime were created. Built forms within these periods are utilizing stated methodologies to drive their ultimate form. As seen in the formal communication of divinity in that of ancient cultures, with purity of geometry and the striving for intangible nature of the divine through philosophical principles.[1] Moving into the acknowledgement of humanism and the tangible, as seen in architecture of the Middle-Ages. Due to scholarly endeavour these methodologies are easily recognizable and identifiable manifestations of meaning intended by the architect. The manifesto of this ancient architectural meaning is written and is widely acknowledged.
However, a similar manifesto in minimalist architecture is non-existent or at the least, elusory and unrecognizable. This may be by intent of its maker or not, but it is seemingly unclear in the ultimate architectural form, planometric qualities, or spatial perception.
Minimalism in the most recent years suffers greatly from the misrepresentation of the concepts and processes which result in the final expression of form. Whereby the public awareness of minimalist ‘boxes’ being dropped seemingly randomly and without thought abounds in the current zeitgeist. This view is indeed perpetuated by minimalism’s detractors. Ruby challenges this perception of absolute understanding of definitive minimalism.
on one hand its meaning seems entirely clear, on hearing its name there springs to mind a definite image of a particular kind of architecture, yet on the other hand, the harder you try to grasp it, the more the subject avoids definition.[2]
As such minimalism exists in the modern era as a core expectation of merely what is perceived as an idealised version or archetype of what minimalism is.
It is this misappropriation of the term that is intended to be clarified under examination, to encapsulate what minimalism by investigating the principles and methodologies behind minimalism’s champions and key influences. To understand this an examination of the earliest inception of it’s principles, in that of the modernist architectural movement.
A clear catalyst for the emergence and distillation of minimalism into the modern era is the success of 20th Century modernism and associated movements. Stevanonic concedes that:
Even though the modern movement is a complex phenonemnon in its origins and development, a repertoire of its forms unambiguoiusly corresponds to the minimalism which appeared afterwards. […] architects of the modern movement (Adolf Loos, Mies ven der Rohe and Le Corbusier) were also adopted by the minimalist artists from the 1960’s and architects from the 1990’s[3]
As such key expounder’s of this movement, such as Mies Van der Rohe and Le Corbusier, are of great import and their works of high-value in determining a set of principles that embodied meaning into early forms of minimalist architecture. The modernist movement is the 20th Century architects endeavouring to synthesize the dramatic shifts in culture and technology occurring after the turn of the Century. Confronting the architects was a frontier being pushed far into the distance and behind them was the crumbling remains of institutions of the 19th Century, such as the École des Beaux-Arts.
By removing such constraints allowed the architects to explore outside of previously socially determined enclosure and hierarchy of spatial classification. This modernist principle allowed an emphasis to be placed on spatial quality and interaction between functional spaces. This was antithetical to the long established traditions of Classicism, whereby social restriction, hierarchy and enclosure were seen as paramount for internalized spatial organisation. However, with the rise of modernist thinking at the turn of the Century, architecture began to explore continuity of planometric space, and the experience of the subjective occupancy of space and the narrative movement through space could be investigated. [4] This came to be known as ‘free plan’. Dennis elucidates further:
The traditional plan articulates the difference between spaces, while the free plan articulates the difference between objects. The consequential emphasis on spatial continuity and the unity of the whole is bound to be at the expense of the identity of the part[5]
This unshackling from the confines of tradition allowed a new methodology of expression to form, whereby meaning was not generated from the purist geometry derived from Greek and Roman architecture, it was derived from the desire to highlight experiential narrative and paid credence to that of the Picturesque.
The Picturesque cannot be distilled down to any specific parameters or formalist notion that could be considered typically or quintessentially of the Picturesque.[6] Such a notion is undefinable by a series of techniques, movements or genres and is not restrained by these. The Picturesque has successfully transplanted itself across disciplines, and across art and architectural movements. MacArthur argues that it is principle concerned with “the external world and sensation than with the sentimental subject”[7]. It is here that Mies’ van der Rohe and Le Corbusier, with great finesse, employs the concept of the picturesque, by structuring an asymmetrical and irregular arrangement and clear progression of spaces it is creating a picturesque narrative which the occupant can explore.
The Barcelona Pavilion by Mis Van Der Rohe is one of the most significant building of the twentieth century.[8] The primary reason for it being categorized as such is, Indeed it was so radical, initially there was an inability for the building to be classified, for the building to be fully understood, an appropriate linguistic framework was created overtime.[9] Further advances into minimalist architectural theory and interpretation allowed appropriate criticism of the oddities of the pavilion and the challenges it posed to existing architectural expression. Examined here is one of Mies’ contributions to minimalist methodologies is that, the Barcelona Pavilion “exemplified the characteristics of the free plan”[10] Breaking away from the structured, rigid, hierarchal arrangement of space of Classicism, the pavilion’s ambiguous spatial delineation is achieved various near transparent stone walls, that are seemingly randomly arranged, underneath a planar roof supported by a simple grid system of steel columns.
The aesthetic value of these works and the absence of programme enable a study of the spatial construction of meaning separately from those meanings associated with social functions.[11]
This was the radical nature of the building that resulted in the difficulties in categorizing the Pavilion appropriately.
Though the appearance of the Pavilion is that of irregularity, disconnectedness, and simply an exercise in formal manipulation. This initial assumption is washed away upon entering. Mies’ utilises the free plan of the space to avoid demarcation of space and remove himself from hierarchy, and most importantly, to achieve control of the optical experience of the occupant. Mies’ was moving away from Classicism by removing himself from the notion of a static and pre-determined vantage point from why the building is best observed. Instead he was replacing the “replaced a privileged point with multiple viewing positions”[12] As seen in Fig.1 and Fig.2 the arrangement of disjointed spatial arrangement resulted in the continually altering viewpoints through the circulation of the building. None of which could be defined as the ideal or intended static point that the building demanded to be experienced. Instead it was intended to be experienced through movement. It was by this that Mies’ was first attempting, in a modernist context, to make use of the approach of that of augmenting the Picturesque through narrative progression through a building. It is by this form of architectural generation that Mies’ imparts meaning onto his works, rejecting that of the purist formalism and traditions of classicism, The Barcelona Pavilion is in constant conversation with it’s occupants and this conversation is where the value of the architecture is brought to the foreground.
Figure 1 – no author available, distributed by CC BY-SA 3.0, Available from: Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Barcelona_Pavilion_exterior1.jpg (accessed October 22, 2015)
Figure 2 – no author available, distributed by CC BY-SA 3.0, Available from: Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Barcelona_Pavilion_interior.jpg (accessed October 22, 2015)
Le Corbusier honed this new minimalist modernist driver of meaning, even granting this process a title, promenade architecturale. Psarra argues that this notion of the progression of picturesque narrative through movement of space is a strategic generator of the architectural process in the early progenitors of minimalist principles.
a building is seen as something to be experienced. This experience follows a route and unfolds in time. For some architect’s spatial narrative is central not only to the way in which they describe buildings but also to way in which they design.
Le Corbusier is perhaps one of the most keenly aware of the value that can be generated by the narrative to be found in the promenade architecturale. One such work that expressly uses this methodology to generate the architecture is Le Corbusier’s The Maison La Roche (1923). Here Le Corbusier directly embraces and engages with the tools of the Picturesque, whereby he orchestrates the occupants position, occupant’s progression through space, the occupants field of view.[13] As opposed to previous iterations and manifestations of the Picturesque in art and paintings, here Corbusier uses the standards of the Picturesque to conduct an architectural narrative. By making use of an arching ramp in the North Eastern picture gallery, Corbusier is subtly creating an unfolding sequence of images as the ramp ascends to move through to the upper Western wing.
Figure 3 – Radomir Cernoch, distributed by CC BY-SA 2.0, Available from: Flickr Commons, http://www.flickr.com/photos/30718644@N03/8665435561/ (accessed October 23, 2015)
Le Corbusier’s fundamental development of his proposition promenade architecturale here is the user is not aware of any particular route or agenda but the building, and its associated views, simply evolve as the user moves throughout the space.[14] It is not an articulated path or established transition between spaces, for example as didactic or pre-determined as a narrative in The Jewish Museum in Berlin by Daniel Libeskind[15], the building reveals itself through “sequential unfolding visual field that is coordinated formally; it has images as a film has images”[16]
Parallels can be drawn here between methodologies employed by Mies’ Barcelona Pavilion and that of Corbusier’s promenade architecturale as exhibited in Maison La Roche. The principle driver behind the production of formal architecture is that of a cinematographic concern. Both utilise the premise of narrative picturesque, a simultaneous combination of traditional Picturesque apparatuses and a zeal to embrace the free-plan and continuity of space. Leading to a highly dynamic and fluid generation of architecture, whereby exhibiting the external and internal as aspects of the picturesque and commanding an overarching narrative of movement. Ocular-centric experience is called upon to demonstrate spatial integration and interaction. As it is the underscoring of the external – gardens, vistas, city-skylines – that allow a separation of function and enclosure.[17] By this set of principles, the minimalist can find meaning, not from reduction or formalist generators, but by the production process of the design itself.
This notion of the influence of the Picturesque on minimalist art, and by inference architecture, can be seen in Richard Serra’s sculptural works. Yves-Alain Bois’ now critical essay on the nature of the Picturesque as exhibited by many of Serra’s work, develops the concept of parallax and the importance this plays in the experiential qualities of the Picturesque. This has plagued theorists of the picturesque, and been constant source discontent amongst Picturesque theory. As the two distinguishable pillars in picturesque theory; fixed, static landscape painting and the dynamic nature of the experiential of promenade in gardens. Bois includes the discovery or embrace of parallax into the Picturesque, whereby architecture and artists such as Serra could engage with the Picturesque as temporal experience, rather than notions of linear promenade of scenic gardens and motionless paintings.[18] By removing that of the static notion of pictorial images created by dynamic or static elements of the Picturesque, one thing is generated through embracing the parallax in this way, the weakening of the form and the detachment from a purely Gestalt reading of Serra’s works. Serra’s work detaches itself from the traditional production of representation or form. Collins accurately describes this traditional concept.
The Classical notion of design, whether in gardens or buildings, regarded the totality of such schemes as forming a single unified and immediately tangible composition, of which elements were subdivisions constituting smaller but still harmoniously related parts[19]
Bois see’s Serra’s absorption of the parallax into his works as return to the material view of the humanist perspective, granted value onto the perceptualist notion of human interaction through space as in dialogue with the art.[20] It is through Bois’ elucidation of the way Serra’s Clara Clara employs human interaction, magnification of surroundings and removes itself from formalism that the tenants of the Picturesque are fundamental to the expression of minimalist art and therefore architecture in the 21st Century.
The employ of these outlined principles can be seen in the distinguishably minimalist architectural forms of the recent years, though they must be analysed to remove them from the growing public consensus of minimalism as being meaning-less pure object-based geometries. The late Charles Correa’s Champaulimaud Centre for the Unknown (CCftU) used here employs the outlined framework of experiential narrative and the rekindling of the Picturesque to drive the creation of minimalist architecture and thereby impart meaning into his work.
The CCftU is a great sculptural building consisting of 3 separate units, that of medical research, a theatre/exhibition hall and an amphitheatre. Located on the coast in Lisbon, Portugal, Correa utilised the picturesque to drive the resultant form of his sculptural building. The external ascending promenade to the ocean establishes external direction and a form of promenade architecturale, though on a much grander scale than Le Corbusier’s Maison La Roche.
The compressive nature of the spaces created externally frame the view upwards to the coast and the monoliths delicately balanced at the end of the external occupant’s journey. The views made available by the building that flanks the occupant are constantly in flux as you ascend the ramp in delicate curve following the form. The view is initially compressed, then expanded again, offering a constantly shifting, dynamic experience of the Picturesque.
Figure 4 – David Pereira, http://www.archdaily.com/147761/more-photographs-of-champalimaud-centre-for-the-unknown-charles-correa-associates. Available from: Arch Daily, http://www.archdaily.com/147761/more-photographs-of-champalimaud-centre-for-the-unknown-charles-correa-associates (accessed Sept 15, 2015)
Figure 5
Upon return oblique internal views are made available to the occupant, into the putting the building in motion. The openings allow for a parallax exploration of the internal courtyard, though not publically accessible, the experiential qualities of the space can be appreciated and are expressed to the viewer by Correa through the framed openings (Fig 5).
Figure 6 – David Pereira, http://www.archdaily.com/147761/more-photographs-of-champalimaud-centre-for-the-unknown-charles-correa-associates. Available from: Arch Daily, http://www.archdaily.com/147761/more-photographs-of-champalimaud-centre-for-the-unknown-charles-correa-associates (accessed Sept 15, 2015)
This creates narrative progress of the curvature of the building, both internally and externally. Internal occupants are able to experience the dynamically shifting external picture as they move throughout their workplace, whereas the external public can grasp the internal qualities of the architecture without having to engage directly with the space. It is by this Correa has embodied meaning into his work, with the delicate appreciation of public and private nature of the building, however managing to incorporate the Picturesque into both experiences of the building. It is by this that the monolithic nature of the CCtfU is allowed to express nuance and through a delicate appreciation of the Picturesque and external veritable narrative journey that Correa asserts meaning to the building. It is not only a collection of three sheer stone walls, it has experiential qualities derived from the core proponents of minimalism and pays homage to the prolonged debate that has culminated in it’s ultimate form.
Meaning in minimalism is often mischaracterized as the intention to reduce an artwork or built form to the formalist, Platonic geometry and purist possible outcome of structure and form. However, this definition does not allow minimalism to express it is true intent or capability. This is the frontier by which minimalist architecture finds itself facing, a public misrepresentation of the value of minimalist architecture, whereby the ego of architecture and form are paramount. This is demonstrated to be not so, as the roots and traditions of minimalism have been reignited in architecture in the past few decades. Methodologies and principles of the picturesque and narrative progression are beginning to emerge back into the foreground. And it is these methodologies that were championed by the earliest proponents of reductive architecture, Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier. The modern movement allowed such architects to investigate the process of reduction to not only challenge social confines and traditions but this allowed a new practical process and generative process of architecture to emerge. Influenced by previous art theory of the Picturesque this began to emerge as a process of subtle and nuanced architectural production. Rather than grandiose ideals – and ultimately grandiose built form – of Classicism, minimalism enabled the architect to re-engage with the occupant, rather than simply address the static spectator. This was reignited in the 1960’s by the perceptualist and minimalist artist’s, the culmination of which was the exploration of the Picturesque and the parallax in Serra’s work. These generative methodologies allow reduction to express meaning by focusing on the individual, through the conduits of the temporal Picturesque and the promenade architecturale. If the value of minimalism is to ever be seen as palpable as the value seen in ancient and classical architecture there must be a continued dialogue between the architect and the occupant. Currently, the lack of meaning associated with minimalism is unlikely to be retracted without a framework of minimalist principles that asserts the values of minimalism through the lens of the experiential and Picturesque. This is why building such as the Champaulimaud Centre for the Unknown are key to re-establishing minimalism as they continue to conduct this conversation, purporting minimalism as having veritable significance and more importantly meaning.
Minimalism is free from the art of divulging direct meaning, it allows it’s meaning to examined by the conversation it has with the user and the with the context in which it is place, this conversation will ultimately succeed.
LIST OF CITATIONS (BIBLIOGRAPHY)
Bois, Yve-Alain. “A Picturesque Stroll around Clara-Clara .” October 1984.
Bonta, Juan Pablo. Architecture and It’s Interpretation: A Study of Expressive Systems in Architecture. New York: Rizzoli, 1979.
Collins, Peter. Changing Ideal in Modern Architecture, 1750-1950. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1998.
Davis, Tracey C., and Thomas Postlewait. Theatricality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Dennis, Michael. Court & Garden: From the French Hôtel to the City of Modern Architecture. Boston: The MIT Press, 1988.
Evans, Robin. The Projective Cast: Architecture and It’s Three Geometries. Boston: MIT Press, 2000.
Fried, Michael. “Art & Objecthood.” (University of Chicago Press) 1967.
Gelernter, Mark. “The Middle Ages.” In In Sources of Architectural Form: A Critical History of Western Design Theory, by Mark Gelernter, 69-90. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999.
Hays, Michael K. “Critical Architecture: Between Culture and Form.” Perspecta (The MIT Press) 21 (1984): 14-29.
Holt-Damant, Kathi. “Constructs of Space: German Expressionism, Mies van der Rohe and Yasujiro Ozu.” 20th Annual Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians Australia and New Zealand. Sydney: University of Sydney, 2003. 14.
MacArthur, John. The Picturesque: architecture, disgust and other irregularities. London: Routledge, 2007.
Pevsner, Nikolaus. “C 20 Picturesque.” The Architectural Review 115, no. 688 (1954): 228-229.
Psarra, Sophia. “Foundations.” In Architecture and Narrative: The Formation of Space and Cultural Meaning in Buildings, by Sophia Psarra, 17-43. New York: Routledge, 2009.
Ruby, Ilka. “Essential Meta: The Chimeras of Minimalist Architecture.” In Minimal architecture, by Ilka Ruby, 16-26. Munich: Prestel, 2003.
Stevanovic, Vladimir. “Cultural Based Preconceptions in Aesthetic Experience of Architecture.” SPATIUM International Review 26 (December 2011): 20-25.
[1] Gelernter, Mark. “The Middle Ages.” In Sources of Architectural Form: A Critical History of Western Design Theory. 1995.
[2] Ruby, Ilka. “Essential Meta: The Chimeras of Minimalist Architecture.” In Minimal architecture. 2003.
[3] Stevanovic, Vladimir. “Cultural Based Preconceptions in Aesthetic Experience of Architecture.” SPATIUM International Review 26 (December 2011): 20-25.
[4] Holt-Damant, Kathi. “Constructs of Space: German Expressionism, Mies van der Rohe and Yasujiro Ozu.”. 2.
[5] Dennis, Michael. Court & Garden: From the French Hôtel to the City of Modern Architecture. Boston: The MIT Press, 1988.
[6] MacArthur, John. The Picturesque: architecture, disgust and other irregularities. London: Routledge, 2007. 17.
[7] Ibid. 17.
[8] Psarra, Sophia. “Foundations.” In Architecture and Narrative: The Formation of Space and Cultural Meaning in Buildings. 43.
[9] Bonta, Juan Pablo. Architecture and It’s Interpretation: A Study of Expressive Systems in Architecture. 1979.
[10] Psarra, Sophia. “Foundations.” In Architecture and Narrative: The Formation of Space and Cultural Meaning in Buildings. 46.
[11] Psarra, Sophia. “Foundations.” In Architecture and Narrative: The Formation of Space and Cultural Meaning in Buildings. 8
[12] Psarra, Sophia. “Foundations.” In Architecture and Narrative: The Formation of Space and Cultural Meaning in Buildings. 46.
[13] MacArthur, John. The Picturesque. 53.
[14] MacArthur, John. The Picturesque. 55.
[15] Psarra, Sophia. “Foundations.” In Architecture and Narrative: The Formation of Space and Cultural Meaning in Buildings. 67.
[16] MacArthur, John. The Picturesque. 54.
[17] MacArthur, John. The Picturesque. 18.
[18] Bois, Yve-Alain. “A Picturesque Stroll around Clara-Clara .”43.
[19] Collins, Peter. Changing Ideal in Modern Architecture, 1750-1950. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1998. 53.
[20] Bois, Yve-Alain. “A Picturesque Stroll around Clara-Clara .”43.
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