Architecture and nature; glenn murcutts magney huouse in comparison with four rural houses in the first half of the twentieth century

v Introduction...1 Methodology ...6 Modern Movement and its ‘masters’...9 Le Corbusier and the Villa Savoye...9 Frank Lloyd Wright and the Fallingwater...16 Alvar Aalto anf the Vil

ARCHITECTURE AND NATURE;

GLENN MURCUTT’S MAGNEY HOUSE IN COMPARISON WITH

FOUR RURAL HOUSES IN THE FIRST HALF OF

THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

Contents page

Statement of authorship i

Table of contents ii

Acknowledgements iv

Preface v

Introduction 1

Methodology 6

Modern Movement and its ‘masters’ 9

Le Corbusier and the Villa Savoye 9

Frank Lloyd Wright and the Fallingwater 16

Alvar Aalto anf the Villa Mairea 24

Mies van der Rohe and the Farnsworth House 32

Sustainability 38

Glenn Murcutt and objective and subjective influences on his natural-related architecture 42

Childhood 42

Overseas excursions 45

Magney House, Murcutt’s one of the most iconic masterpieces apparently revealing his ideas 52

General description 56

Natural image 58

Technical image 67

Conclusion 79

Notes 81

Appendix: Summary comparison of the houses 84

References 87

I gratefully acknowledge Professor Antony Radford for his dedicated supervision on my research I am profoundly impressed by his whole-hearted instructions on the research process, on the study of architectural values, on the expression method of writing I also thank for his lending of many interesting books which are useful for my writing and knowledge

Acknowledgement and appreciation to Hoang Tung for his multifold role in computer help

of 3D rendering and graphic design Also thank to Do Huu Minh Triet, Bui Viet Duong for their warm encouragements on my work, special appreciation to Triet for his editing my first draft of the report Thank Vo Ngoc Linh for the copy of his dissertation

I particularly thank to Veronica Soebarto, Deborah White, and Izziah Hasan for their significant comments on my presentation which form the foundation for a convincing argument

Acknowledgements

Nature, humans, and architecture are three sections of a whole system, which has existed together for long time The manners in which humans respond to nature, in architectural approach, have been much discussed in many theories, for example, the Oriental Fen-sui

or sustainability However, when reading books about Glenn Murcutt, who was the 2002

Pritzker Architectural Prize laureate, I am extremely drawn to his architectures

Murcutt eschewed to design big projects but only relatively small ones of which many are residential buildings They gently ‘touch’ to the earth, causing a minimal impact on the place they are located I propose that he is the ‘architect of nature’ His oeuvre is defined

in nature-related houses with his careful attentions to the climate adaptation and to the connection to surrounding nature The Magney house can be considered to be one of Murcutt’s most typical emblems

An interesting thing is that there is a relation between Murcutt’s works and the famed rural houses designed by Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright, Alvar Aalto and Mies van der Rohe

in the first half of the twentieth century Preceding events cause a remarkable influence on the posterity’s determinations It is seen that this inheritance is about simple form, tangible materiality, natural allusiveness, and overall, the way they connect to nature

In this research, I would like to examine the ways those architects’ works responded to nature, and to study the links between them in spite of their different chronologies of birth

Preface

The aim of this dissertation is to examine relationships between architecture and

‘nature’ by analysing and comparing the Magney House by Glenn Murcutt and four iconic rural houses built in the first half of the twentieth century: the Villa Savoye, Fallingwater, the Villa Mairea and the Farnsworth House

In each historic period, ‘nature’ has been understood differently The concept of

‘nature’ in architecture is not an exception According to Raymond Williams’

Keywords; a Vocabulary of Culture and Society, ‘nature’ is defined in three senses:

“(i) the essential quality and character of something; (ii) the inherent force which

directs either the world or human being or both; (iii) the material world itself, taken as including or not including human beings” (Williams 1976: 184) The term of ‘nature’ used in this dissertation follows the third of Williams’ definitions excluding human beings Thus “‘Nature’ has meant the ‘countryside’, the ‘unspoiled places’, plants and creatures other than man” (Williams 1976: 188) This was present from the 17thcentury 1

In the 18th century, art, in general, including architecture considered ‘nature’ to be “a means of resistance to the artificiality of culture” (Forty 2000: 235) To the 19thcentury, the inventions in natural sciences and the appearance of new alternative materials, such as steel and glass, reduced the influence of ‘nature’ on the aesthetic architectural concept The scientists declared that they could explain ‘nature’ and

Introduction

use the image of machinery aesthetics to reveal human power over ‘nature’ Many dominant buildings were built in this time that showed their great sizes and modern material use with an important role of civil engineers, for instance, the Eiffel tower in Paris, 1889 by Gustav Eiffel Forty writes that: “By the end of the nineteenth century, particularly for those architects who espoused the “modern”, nature had nothing to offer” (Forty 2000: 236) Yet Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright 2, Alvar Aalto and Mies van der Rohe all wrote much about the significant role of ‘nature’ in architecture To Wright, “Primarily, Nature furnished the materials for architectural motifs out of which the architectural forms as we know them have developed” (Wright 1908, quoted in Forty 2000: 238) Thus in ‘nature’, values of the architecture

is enhanced In a different view, Le Corbusier presented his notion of the

relationship between architecture and ‘nature’ in the book The Home of Man He

To Aalto, Finnish landscape is a valuable source of inspiration in his architectural design He wrote: “The purpose of the present article is to underline the fact that pure, original nature, with all its magic power, cannot surpass the sight of the landscape to which a human touch has been added as harmonious, enhancing factor” (Aalto 1925, quoted in Schildt 1998: 21) Thus Aalto argues that a building can improve the landscape It can stand side by side with the landscape to contribute its role to the whole picture Meantime, Mies said: “We should strive to bring Nature, homes, and people together into higher unity” (Mies 1958, quoted in Tegethoff 1985: 130) Like Le Corbusier, he maintains a clear separateness between the human object and ‘nature’

The work they designed reflected their ideas They visually relate to ‘nature’ in different ways Whereas the Villa Savoye, and the Farnsworth House emphasise

‘separation’, Fallingwater emphasises ‘organic connection’ The Villa Mairea is inserted into landscape as a human object enhancing ‘nature’ It is ‘overlaid’ between an artificial object and an image of ‘nature’ which is employed in this building

However, the understanding of ‘nature’ has “been entirely transformed since the late 1960s by the environmental movement” (Forty 2000: 238) The term ‘nature’ now is

considered to be an ecosystem on which architecture interacts with a careful wariness of keeping its balance for future sustainability Living in harmony with

‘nature’ is to minimise the human passive actions in shaping the environment (Elliott 1997: 118-119) “Touch the earth lightly” is the maxim by which Glenn Murcutt means to place architecture into an entire ‘nature’ By this, he metaphorically means that architecture should cause a minimal impact on ‘nature’ rather than exploit it with human ignorance of harmony

The reason for this dissertation is to concentrate on the image of house and

‘nature’, and how this image relates to concurrent images of house and technology and of house and culture Each one expresses the designer’s way of inserting the house into ‘natural’ surroundings The Villa Savoye (1929-31) by Le Corbusier is a simple and pure ‘object’, freely standing in the midst of a vast meadow Being the result of radical Modernism, it rejected past values of architecture in a new architectural language: simplicity, ‘objectness’, and ‘freedom’

in ‘nature’ In contrast, Fallingwater (1937-9) designed by Frank Lloyd Wright combines images of human dominance and power over ‘nature’ with that of emerging from ‘nature’ However, Wright imbued the concept of ‘organism’ in the building by hovering it over the waterfall to exploit distinctive sounds, and moreover, to express a visible change of time and of weather on the house throughout the year Consequently, the interrelation between the house and

surrounding milieu makes up a materiality and expressiveness for Fallingwater on the peculiar site Combined from the Villa Savoye and Fallingwaters’ features, the Villa Mairea (1938-9) by Alvar Aalto is both ‘object’ and emergent Naturally inserted into the site, the house works well with young forest Furthermore, Aalto attached images of natural bunches of tree trunks and bamboo to the canopy and staircase details, utilising raw materials, especially timber and rock, and capturing bounty of light into the house The Farnsworth House (1945-50) by Mies van der Rohe causes a minimal impact on the site The house’s purity and simplicity are portrayed not only on the form but also on polished materials of steel and glass It

is a foil to the ‘natural’ background with trees, leaves and grassland

The Magney house (1982-84), designed by Glenn Murcutt in New South Wales, Australia much later than those ‘masters’’ houses, is a multi-faceted synthesis of nature-related aspects, including many similar characteristics to the above rural houses from which he has been influenced The reason is that Le Corbusier, Wright, Aalto, and Mies had been dominant figures in the recent history of architecture when Murcutt had been a student Also, their buildings would have been attractions when Murcutt was traveling around America and Europe in his excursions The Magney house responds to the site in the way which relates to natural, technical and cultural images of sustainability

The main strategies utilised within this dissertation are simulation and case study within a qualitative research paradigm “Qualitative research involves the studied use and collection of a variety of empirical materials” (Denzin and Lincoln, quoted

in Groat and Wang, 2002, 176) while “Simulation research involves controlled replications of real-world contexts or events for the purposes of studying dynamic interactions within that setting” (Groat and Wang, 2002, 278) “A case study is an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context, especially when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident” (Yin, quoted in Groat and Wang, 2002, 346) Each strategy, like an important link in a chain, is related to a stage in the research

The case study buildings are observed in connection with nature under a theory of images of sustainability These include the natural, cultural and technical images

“In the natural image, the key to architectural sustainability is to work ‘with’, not

‘against’, nature; to understand, sensitively exploit and simultaneously avoid damaging natural system” (Williamson, Radford, and Bennetts 2003: 27) The more a building relates to nature, the better it responds to this image Design ‘with’ nature can be recognised on the resolution of surrounding-image allusion, sun paths, ventilation, orientation and greenery The cultural image of a building manifests vernacular codes, including local traditional construction and details, and indigenous plants and trees in the places it is located The appearance of the

building respects and interacts with existing cultural values rather than breaks through them The technical image portrays a technical innovation to increase the efficiencies of energy and to reduce the use of natural resource within a minimal cost A consideration of material use, form and system is necessary to achieve this image.3 The comparison of these houses in term of the three images is included in Appendix of the report

The main source for this dissertation is architects’ own words from published

interviews Touch this earth lightly: Glenn Murcutt in his own words by Philip Drew

records a series of interviews with Glenn Murcutt in 1983 (Drew 1999) In addition, Glenn Murcutt’s design ideas are also demonstrated in many published sources,

such as Glenn Murcutt, a singular architectural practice by H Beck and J Cooper

In order to refer to the ‘modern masters’’ rural houses, some primary quotations

are extracted from many books including The Natural Houses by Wright 1954,

Alvar Aalto in His Own Words by Schildt 1998, Mies van der Rohe by Tegethoff

1985, and The Ideas of Le Corbusier on Architecture and Urban Planning by

Guiton 1981 These records and interviews are considered as primary sources that reveal their concepts of design Although not like personal contact, these talks are extremely useful for those who would like to know their thoughts about nature and the buildings designed in that environment These data from meticulous

selection and collection eventually become citations for analysing and proving theoretical points of view of the dissertation

To emphasise a strong argument, Murcutt’s Magney house is chosen to be constructed as a 3D CAD model for a theoretical examination The replication of the house on computer is an effective mean of testing some natural-friendly characteristics of architecture, evaluating light quantity and shading, and depicting the use of material and the connections between the building and the surroundings Based on the theories of sustainable perspectives, analyses and arguments are put under all angles of material use, built form, detail-making, energy efficiency, and integration with nature They are, in general, salient points

to reveal a ‘gentle touch of his building on the earth’ (Drew 1999)

Modernism (started in circa 1880) played a significant role in leading to a contemporary natural movement in architecture It is the backdrop for seeking a future route in order to integrate architecture with the ecosystem sensitively (Jones and Hudson 1998: 23) Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright, Alvar Aalto, and Mies van de Rohe are four representatives among the most well-known architects who had crucial influences on architecture which, according to their approaches,

is an ‘organic’ artifice4 which creates relations between humans and nature The chosen rural houses disclose the architects’ thoughts about an architecture ‘living’

in nature

Regarded as a pioneering exponent of the Modern Movement, Le Corbusier (1887-1965) was prolific in creating works ranging from urban planning to artistic and architectural design Le Corbusier frequently designed buildings with long glass strips on façades to take maximum advantage of daylight They are raised

on columns or piers for better natural ventilation This is contrary to the usual and traditional method of the past construction (Hopwood 1971: 58, 59) These features are found in his prominent examples, such as the Villa Savoye at Poissy (1929-31) and Swiss Hotel at Paris University (1930-32) In the writings, Le Corbusier frequently mentioned a relationship of nature with architecture Indeed,

“he portrayed nature in its essence as a system, of which man is a part, and as an

Modern Movement and its ‘masters’

Le Corbusier and the Villa Savoye

embodiment of order” (Jones and Hudson 1998: 23) He emphasised the role of

‘man’5 in the interaction with nature and conceived that ‘man’ would benefit if he

“obeys the laws of nature” and gets harmonious with “the perpetual flux of nature” Deriving from the beauty of the human form, Le Corbusier invoked the ‘rational laws’ and ‘golden scales’ for architectural design to get a fine proportion with the cosmos Le Corbusier’s principles about a poetic, aesthetic and nature-related architecture, which are implemented in his works, are apparent evidences of a genius idea Thus he has had a significant influence on a new generation of architecture practitioners in their use of material, form, detail, colour and texture

The Villa Savoye (Figure 1), which is located at Poissy, 30 kilometres west from

Paris, expresses Le Corbusier’s principles for a new architecture In this work, he brought air, light, sky vault and view together into one place In fact, standing amidst a vast meadow, the Villa seems to be emphasised as a focal point of nature It seems to hover and float on the rows of slender round columns The lift

of the building from the ground level provided an unobstructed view and made the meadow appear to continue unlimitedly Le Corbusier stated about the significance and the beauty of this nature’s continuity:

Figure 1: The Villa Savoye (Illustration from Gössel & Leuthäuser 1991: 172)

Another thing: the view is very beautiful, the grass is beautiful and so is the forest We will preserve this The house will stand in the midst of the fields like an object, without disturbing anything around it

(Le Corbusier quoted in Sbriglio 1999: 49)

As a light-coloured and stark box, the Villa Savoye is a ‘salient’ and ‘celestial’

object in the midst of landscape (Figure.2) Despite poising, it is attaching into the

ground; despite prominence, it is harmonious with the cosmic surroundings It is said that Le Corbusier created an ambiguity in the building; the ambiguity between the modern aesthetics and the conventional house, between ‘separation’ from and

‘attachment’ to nature ‘The house is a box raised above the ground, perforated all around, without interruption, by a long horizontal window No more hesitation about architectural plays of voids and solids The box is in the centre of the fields, overlooking orchards’ (Le Corbusier in translation by Aujame 1991: 136)

The Villa Savoye has three floor levels which are horizontally divided by long strip windows along with the façade At the ground floor, service facilities are occupied with servant’s quarters, laundry and a three-parking-space garage A undercroft, made up by the space under first level’s ceiling and rows of round stilts, becomes

a mediating connection from outside landscape Thus the continuity of nature is welcomed into the house Its disposition was described by Le Corbusier:

From inside the entrance, the ramp leads easily, hardly noticed, up to the first floor, where the life of the inhabitants goes on: reception, bedrooms, etc Receiving views and light from around the periphery of the box, the different rooms center on a hanging garden that is there like a distributor of adequate light and sunshine It is on the hanging garden that the sliding plate glass walls of the salon and other rooms of the house open freely: thus the sun is everywhere, in the very heart of the house From the hanging garden, the ramp, now on the outside, leads to the solarium on the roof

(Le Corbusier in translation by Aujame 1991: 136) The air and light seems to focus on this Villa, the centre of the vast meadow:

… Air circulates everywhere, there is light at every point, it penetrates everywhere Circulation furnishes architecture impressions of such diversity that they disconcert visitors ignorant of the architectural liberties brought by modern techniques The simple columns of the ground floor, by their suitable plan, frame the landscape with a regularity that suppresses all notions of

“front” of “back” or “side” of the house

(Le Corbusier, translated in Aujame 1991: 136 & 138)

‘Five points of a new architecture’ generated by Le Corbusier were experimented

at this work It marked a change of the traditional concept to Western architectural design practice that a building is always built on and connected with the ground The Villa Savoye, with its rows of in situ slender round columns, is ethereal above the air, and provides a free view to the observers Scenery of tall trees and forest background are uninterrupted due to the see-through undercroft and the glazing strip windows The plan is simple, pure and free-formed, combined with various free facades of the building in each orientation A roof garden, which becomes the hanging garden, created a link between humans and nature, between the heaven and the earth In the house, air, light and wind appear to be concordant and fervently embrace together The creation of a sloping ramp, reinforced by the use

of spiral stair, tightens the spaces in vertical direction The use of material, such

as reinforced concrete and masonry, expressed a precise and ‘machine-finished’ surface quality to the Villa It is not a ‘machine of living’ yet a ‘machine’ for humans

to ‘live’ amongst nature There is no boundary of wall and enclosure in the villa It opens toward distant orchards and overlooks a vast green and windy meadow Grazing cows can continue their task next to the building without any ‘thought’ that

it is a place where humans live and enjoy rest

Le Corbusier’s writings on this architecture can be a summary for the above ideas:

Reinforced concrete has brought flat roofs with interior drain pipes and many other structural innovations It is no longer really possible to draw a cornice, for this is no longer a living architectural entity; the function of the cornice no longer exists But we have found the sharp, pure line that a flat-roofed building cuts across a brilliant sky

New techniques have also produced a useful instrument for those who create plastic form: stilts What a marvelous way to lift the centre of proportions, the centre of all measurements, into the air, where its four sides are plainly visible! Thanks to reinforced concrete or steel, this raised prism is more legible than ever before

So, simplicity is not equivalent to poverty; it is a choice, a discrimination, a crystallization Its object is purity Simplicity synthesizes A ragged agglomeration of cubes is an accidental event, but a synthesis is an intellectual act

(Le Corbusier quoted in Guiton 1981: 34, 35)

Frank Lloyd Wright (1869-1959), an eminent American architect, imbued the

‘organic’ notion on his many buildings and projects Wright’s architecture is ‘an intuitive and poetic response to nature’ (Jones and Hudson 1998: 27), a great performance of material and form which seemed to escape from limitations of Modernist stiff designing rules Jones and Hudson commented about Wright’s manner: “Pioneer of the Modern Movement or not, Wright certainly sits foursquare within the tradition of architecture deriving stimulus and rationale from nature and setting” (Jones and Hudson 1998: 29) Impressed deeply by Japanese art at the beginning of his thought when he traveled to Japan in 1906, he had opportunities

to contact with raw materials and pure sense of spatial regulation These factors were poetically used in most of his buildings Coming from a preacher’s family in a little town in Wisconsin, Frank Lloyd Wright spent his early time outdoors and understood the infinite inspirations of nature that originated his idea of architectural ‘organic’ sense He observed that “[a] building is only ‘organic’ when the exterior and the interior exist in unison, and when both are in harmony with the character and nature of its purpose, its reason for existence, its location, and the time of its creation” (Wright, quoted in Tietz 1999: 16)

Wright’s buildings did not reflect the mandatory principles of modern architecture, but they expressed themselves as the features of reconciliation with nature They were not cubical but free in plasticity of form; were not covered with white but

Frank Lloyd Wright

and Fallingwater

natural colours coming from a variety of available materials; did not have strip windows but full glazing opening to catch natural light; did not use pilotis but lightly touch the ground where they sit.6 Influenced by the architect Louis Sullivan, Wright’s employer and mentor, Wright developed the notion of ‘organism’ as his new proposition of modern architecture and applied this on many buildings he had designed during his life long time Wright preferred simplicity and repose of the house because ‘simplicity and repose are qualities that measure the true value of any work of art’ (Wright 1908, quoted in Guthem 1975: 54) A house designed for

an individual client should reveals its client’s individual styles; it ‘should appear to grow easily from its site and be shaped to harmonise with its surroundings if nature is manifest there and if not try to make it as quiet, substantial and organic’ (Wright 1908, quoted in Guthem 1975: 55) He used raw materials, such as timber, plaster, brickwork and stonework in the design because they produce the intimate and aesthetic textures, and their natural effects of surface The natural colours of material are obviously exposed to adapt to most situations of internal and external decorations as his wishes Plastic form, site response, and raw materials eventually make the house grow within the environment as an ‘organic object’ This concept went abreast with Wright on every corner of his designing life and his works became eloquent evidences of his leitmotif

Wright designed not only more than a hundred ‘natural’ houses but numerous public buildings including S.C Johnson Administration Building, Racines, Wisconsin (1936), Taliesin West, Scottsdale, Arizona (1938), Beth Sholom Synagogue, Elkins Park, Penn (1954) and many different unrealized projects However, I come back to the discussion of a ‘natural” house which is the significant part of Wright’s oeuvre

It is the Kaufmann House (1937-9), popularly named “Fallingwater” (Figure 3), a

masterpiece of the symbiosis between nature and artificial creation, in particular, between the softness of the falling flow with melodious echoes and the horizontal cantilevered concrete terraces hanging over the rocks The house is bountiful of natural light, sound and trees

Figure 3: Fallingwater (Illustration from Gössel & Leuthäuser 1991: 194)

Fallingwater sits amidst tranquil forest The scenery creates a sense that was evoked Wright when came to the site Bear Run, the name of a stream ‘fed by

mountain springs and its flickers down the western slopes of a ridge called Laurel Hill to join the Youghiongheny River’7 Yet, at that time, he merely conceived his inspiration about a future Fallingwater in his thought and imagination A symphony

of running water, a picturesque of young forest, a sculptural outcrop of ledges and boulders and a stream of waterfall are all interplayed together to form

rock-a whole picture of rock-ambience It is the lrock-andscrock-ape throck-at inspired to design rock-an

‘organic’ building which ‘lives’ and ‘breathes’ as a ‘symbiont’ in nature Wright said:

The rock-ledges of a stone-quarry are a story and a longing to me There is suggestion in the strata and character in the formations, I like to sit and feel

it, as it is Often I have thought, were great monumental buildings ever given

me to build, I would go to the Grand Canyon of Arizona to ponder them … For in the stony bone-work of the Earth, the principles that shaped stone as

it lies, or as it rises and remains to be sculptured by winds and tide – there sleep forms and styles enough for all the ages for all of Man …The visit to the waterfall in the woods stays with me and a domicile has taken vague shape in my mind to the music of the stream (Hoffmann 1993: 13)

Wright designed Fallingwater in agreement with its contextual milieu (Figure.4)

Overlaid terraces, which are considered as allusive images of rock ledges along

Figure 4: Diagram of Fallingwater

Bear Run, hover over the stream as if they embraced outcrops on water, hung as leaves of rhododendron amidst the forest land The cantilever image is the result

of showing the human power over nature Despite its dominance on the site, in rhythmical way of arrangement, those concrete cantilevers appear to be playing a musical melody in nature, with the harmonious sounds of leaves and flowing spring It seems that the house and nature enhance each other ‘Wright saw the cantilever as a profoundly natural principle Engineers had used it, but with little sense of its latent poetry or expressive potential With imagination, Wright said, the cantilever could be turned into the most romantic and free of all structural principles’.8 Moreover, Wright’s selection of colours and rounded-edge details of terrace and roof parapets brings a delicate effect to the building

Organic ideals are revealed at the fluidity of planning, the plasticity of form, the expression of material use and the welcome of time, weather and lighting changes throughout the day In the exterior, masses of cantilevers emphasise a proportion

of solid and void in the horizontal direction, in contrast with vertical stone walls and tree trunks These natural and artificial components establish a rhythm of the architecture living with nature

In order to achieve the effect of the deep cantilevers, Wright first tried to apply reinforced concrete structure into a residential project There was an interesting

combination with steel strand to make the construction of the house possible However, masonry was much used here Wright said:

For the first time in my practice, where residence work is concerned in recent years, reinforced concrete was actually needed to construct the cantilever system of this extension of the cliff beside a mountain stream, making living space over and above the stream upon several terraces upon which a man [the client, Edgar J Kaufmann] who loved the place sincerely, one who liked to listen to the waterfall, might well live Steel sash came within reach also for the first time In this design for living down in a glen in a deep forest, shelter took on definite masonry form while still preserving protection overhead for extensive glass surface These deep overhangs provide the interior, as usual, with the softened diffused lighting for which the indweller is invariably graceful,…

(Wright from the Architectural Forum, 1938 quoted in Wright 1960: 272)

With human power, Wright subdued the natural topography by inserting the building into the site As ‘organic object’, the building not only spends its ‘life’ on a

‘living process’ of evolving, growing, and shrinking through time but also attunes to the ambience where it is located It becomes an essential sign to recognise the existence of a symbiosis It is a reason why Edgar J Kaufmann, the client, wrote:

Its beauty remains fresh like that of nature into which it fits It has served well as a home, yet has always been more than that: a work of art, beyond any ordinary measures of excellence … House and site together form the very image of man’s desire to be at one with nature, equal and wedded to nature … Such a place cannot be possessed It is a work by man for man, not by a man for man … By its very intensity it is a public resource, not a

Although emerging in the later period of the Modern Movement, Alvar Aalto 1976) confirmed his position as one of the most famous architectural representatives of the contemporary trend that has influenced on the world’s architectural practices for a long period Aalto’s architecture is a harmonious combination of landscape, technology and humanism Unlike Le Corbusier, whose buildings dominated landscape from a distance, Aalto frequently put his works amidst delicate nature It seems that Aalto’s building and the landscape are two

(1898-unseparated sections of a proper whole He stated:

The landscape is of course also of the utmost important as an aesthetic point of departure for our town plans, although it has been deplorably neglected in Finland The landscapes we meet outside towns no longer consist of untouched nature anywhere; they are the combination of human work and the natural environment […] Nature conservation is not the right term for the measures required, which are rebuilding and the correction of errors, guided by a natural sensibility for beauty Our buildings should not merely meet one or two aesthetic norms; they should be placed in the landscape in natural way, in harmony with its general contours The purpose

of the present article is to underline the fact that pure, original nature, with all its magic power, cannot surpass the sight of the landscape to which a human touch has been added as harmonious, enhancing factor

Alvar Aalto and the Villa Mairea

(Aalto 1925, quoted in Schildt 1998:21)

This feature probably originated from the Finnish nature which had a strong impact on Aalto’s artistic creativeness “Finland was to Aalto as Spain was to Picasso and Ireland to James Joyce It provided him with an inner source of energy that is evident in all his work Materials, imagery and architectural character all flow from stimuli that are particular to his native country” (Jones and

Hudson 1998: 26) In an extravagant article entitled Architecture in the landscape

of Central Finland published in 1925, Aalto said: “[Rural planning]’s main duty is

to guard the beauty of the Finnish landscape […] The landscape of Central Finland, as we see it today, has preserved universal tourist appeal and atmosphere by virtue of its rich forests Variety of contour confers on it a scale so vast that one does not immediately detect the lack of a distinct architecture which would blend harmoniously with the landscape In these hilly regions, villages and clearings are divided into different levels, frequently giving rise to at least semi-beautiful and almost acceptable results, even though it is clear that no cultural considerations have been taken into account in building”.9 The landscape of Finland, to Aalto, was a precious object which he meant that architecture is one of the most important factors to improve and enhance

Amidst a voluminous oeuvre of architectural works around Europe, four buildings which are considered to be emblems of the modern architecture movement are, in Finland: the sanatorium in Paimio (1933), the Villa Mairea in Noormarkku (1938-9)

(Figure 5), and the community center in Säynätsalo (1952), and now in Russia:

the town library in Vipuri (1935) (Tietz 1999: 72) Putting south-facing blocks of the tuberculosis sanatorium in the midst of pines and birches, employing bountiful sunlight for the town library in Vipuri and combining the international Modernism with a vernacular tradition in Villa Mairea (Tietz 1999: 72), Aalto was famous on his attachment of buildings to their surrounding context

Designed in 1939 for an exclusive millionaire in Noormarkku in western Finland, Harry and Maire Gullichsen, the Villa Mairea, a two storey house, is considered to affirm his position and fame in the modern movement of architecture The Villa, to Aalto, was an ‘experiment laboratory’ to form a ‘program’, or to apply new ideas in combination with clients’ desires that use the Villa for living and for displaying their fine art collection Responding to this challenge, Aalto revealed himself not to be a

‘poor architect with a single temporary client’ but a ‘responsible designer who is responsible for an entire nation and for the social life of the entire world’.10

Figure 5: Villa Mairea looking from the pool (Illustration from Reed 1998: 205)

“The building stands alone on a hilltop near the old industrial estate of Noormarkku and the present headquarters of A Ahlstrom paper company It is

surrounded and isolated by an unbroken chain of coniferous trees” (Aalto 1939, quoted in Schildt 1998: 229) Despite its luxurious budget, the Villa Mairea does not occupy dominantly but retains a successful connection with surrounding

forestland (Figure.6) It seems that the whole architecture, including exterior and

interior, is a transformative form of the forest In other words, Alvar Aalto proficiently ‘brought’ the natural appeal of the landscape into this sumptuous Villa

In spatial approach, the L-shaped plan embraces a focal point, which consists of a courtyard lawn, a free-form swimming pool and a sauna bath room Floating clusters of cloud and green image of coniferous trees, hours by hours, are reflected on the water surface of the pool, which is representative for the purity and clearness, like Oriental concepts of natural harmony

A large living room of 250 square meters occupies most of one wing of the L, which was also designed to be a client’s fine art collection space with thick, felt-coated, movable partition walls “The moveable partitions also serve as cabinets for the artworks, making it easy to change the paintings on the walls and to display only a few of them at a time if so desired […] The purpose was to provide

an example of the interrelationship of art and the home” (Aalto 1939, quoted in Schildt 1988: 230) Another wing of the L is occupied of kitchen, service facilities, bedrooms and servant’s room Aalto moved the sauna room and the pool away from the L and closed the courtyard lawn by the surrounding coniferous forest

Figure 6: Diagram of the Villa Mairea

The sauna room and the pool become significant key elements of the architecture, transforming an interrelation between the Villa, the artificial world, and nature, the free landscape where the Villa is sitting It is not a strong contrast but a gradual and agreeable transformation This connection with nature is continued in Aalto’s use of material and colour in the interior and exterior renderings, and on façade and entrance canopy details “The frame of the building is part steel, part perforated brick, and its intermediate floors are thick slabs insulated by porous concrete The façade are part wood – teak and Finnish pine – and part slate and rough rendering” (Aalto 1939, quoted in Schildt 1998: 229) “Local reddish slate was used in the exteriors and interiors; some of the floors are brick, ceramic tiles,

or hornbeam wood” (Aalto 1939, quoted in Schildt 1998: 230) To support the form entrance canopy, many bunches of tree-like columns are used as an allusive image of the forest Similarly, the load bearing post system of the staircase leading to the upper floor is an allusion of Japanese bamboos which ‘grow’ inside the house “Such evocations of natural forms and textures reinforced Aalto’s

free-‘naturalization’ of the architecture of the Villa - their ‘fluctuation’ is indeed

‘suggestive of natural organic life’ (Weston 1992: 6).”Part timber and part slate paving floor with their natural colours evokes the imaginative emotions of a continuous interaction with outside nature Furthermore, glazing fenestrations significantly contribute to this connection, in the meantime, catching daylight into the house and opening a good view to the forest far in the distance However,

these windows were also insulated with special materials to avoid the coldness of winter “Some of external walls are also movable, making it possible to “open the house completely toward the garden”” “Ventilation of the large living room was arranged by using the pine paneling fixed under the concrete ceiling as a filter (it contains 52,000 vents) that distributes clean air evenly throughout the room” (Aalto 1939, quoted in Schildt 1998: 230) With these architectural aspects, Aalto had designed the Villa as an ‘experiment laboratory’ not only in harmony between the clients and their painting collection hobbies but in creative combination of a living space as an affinity with its surrounding landscape

Besides constructing memorable architectures, he was also eminent at designing classic furniture His designs, in the architectural and industrial point of view, were elaborately achieved relating to material use and a natural response The material

he utilised, especially timber, was applied not only on structural details of buildings but also on his industrialised creation of furniture Timber is one of his favourite materials due to its aesthetic expressive advantages for factory-made products

“As the principal material of sensitive architectural detailing, wood is likely to retain its position, for synthetic substitutes have failed to take its place” (Aalto 1956, quoted in Schildt 1998: 102)

The social and natural backgrounds of Finland are the key elements which fostered Aalto’s ideas, which are expressed in what he designed and created in the first half of the 20th century His creativity of architecture and interior designs is

a refined synthesis of the sense of Finnish nature and his innate penchants of structural solution and material use, especially timber Aalto’s oeuvre, thus, marked a changing stage of architectural consciousness in moving “from rational-functional to irrational-organic”.11

A Modernist protagonist who left an obvious influence on later generations of designers is the German-American architect, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969) A memorable image of the long and simple plan of the Farnsworth House

(Figure 7) designed by Mies in 1946 recurred in Murcutt’s mind and formed his

concept of modern architecture at the age of thirteen (Murcutt, quoted in Drew 1999: 67) Its simplicity and Spartan purity in contrast with undisturbed nature are revealed in its plan arrangement and elevation solution The appearance of a terrace lifted from the ground by steel posts, full glazed walls to catch the sunlight, and natural ventilation due to its single-deep-room plan were, possibly, first lessons of architecture that Murcutt learnt from an article introduced by his father, Arthur Murcutt

Referring to the relation of the house to nature, Mies said:

“Nature should also have a life of its own We should avoid disturbing it with the excessive colour of our houses and our interior furnishings Indeed, we should strive to bring Nature, houses, and people together into higher unity When one looks at Nature through the glass walls of Farnsworth House, it takes on a deeper significance than when one stands outside More of Nature is thus expressed – it becomes part of a greater whole”

(Mies 1958, quoted in Tegethoff 1985: 130)

Mies van der Rohe and

the Farnsworth House

Figure 7: Farnsworth House (Illustration from Gössel & Leuthäuser 1991: 226)

The Farnsworth House is the last in a series of Mies’ country houses, lasting more than twenty five years since the Concrete Country House projected in 1923 They are country residences which ‘Mies explored the structural and design

characteristics of various materials (concrete, brick, glass) and tested various ways of creating a transition from interior to exterior space’.12 It is a result of Mies’ notion of constructing the house with glass and steel posts “There are echoes of past projects here: the raised main structure returned to the design of the Concrete Country House and beyond to the Schinkel’s podium designs, while the glass walls recall the Tugendhat house and the Resor project But the continuity stops here: the interpenetration of the internal and external spaces is not controlled or limited by walls, and the confluence of the forest glades takes place right in the interior of the glass volume” (Cohen 1996: 92)

In the Farnsworth House, Mies denied any traditional formula of house design methods but infused a new spirit into the concept of creating a pure and simple

space homogeneous with nature (Figure 8) This concept, more or less, left an

impact on the ensuing contemporary movement of architecture The house, or rather the pavilion, seems to repudiate solid skins in order to relate to landscape through its vast open areas of glass The interior and exterior become one space which is full of natural light and the greenness of the forest It is absolutely a box

of glass, transparent and pure The facades are covered by full-height glazing from floor slab to ceiling, keeping the pavilion ‘live’ in nature

Figure 8: Diagram of

the Farnsworth House

The position of the building was selected beside the Fox River, approximately 75

km west from Chicago, which is usually under the impact of flood The client of the pavilion, Dr Edith Farnsworth, asked Mies to design a rural residence to stay at weekends for her only on a large riverbank site of 3.8 ha, utterly undisturbed and separate from outside contact There is no surrounding property It is the major reason why there is no screen or division applied into private areas, and full-height glass walls open a free view towards the landscape With a long axis in the east-west direction, the house takes good advantages of orientation among shrubs and trees A steel frame and glass walls are key factors to create the light austere pavilion Furthermore, because inundation happened frequently on the Fox River, the floor slabs are raised above the flood level and the house, eventually, seemed

to be a ‘floating object’ from the ground by a system of I-shaped steel columns Within the spirit of pure form and simple plan, four major spacings are constituted

of eight steel columns touching lightly into the ground One of those spacings is opened under the main roof as a porch This space links to an elevated terrace which makes up a mediating zone to connect to free nature However, the most interesting emotion is standing inside the house, looking over transparent glass panels and enjoying the varying of time taking place in the picturesque river and woods milieu Mies described: