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Architecture of Israel #
114
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August
2018
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Less or More
page
english readers
Giving a personal touch to global design
language is not new. The concept was
developed in the 19th century in order to
give mass production local meaning in
the Deutscher Werkbund - the German
Association of Craftsmen that served as
a basis for modernism at the beginning of
the 20th century. The founding architect
was Paul Bruno – and his talented
student, Mies van der Rohe who falsely
commandeered the copyright for the
cliché ‘less is more’.
One assumes that as a world famous
architect who replaced Gropius as
Bauhaus director, Mies was aware of this
line by British poet, Robert Browning, in his
dramatic monologue “Andrea del Sarto”
- a Florentine painter whose work was
characterized by subjects emphasized by
colors, against a gray background.
One way or another, the phrase became
the most renowned symbol of modernist
architecture - tired of the superfluous
ornamentation of the classicism that
preceded it.
In this context, it is worth noting that neither
Mies’s most cited example - Pressworth
House of 1957 and Phillip Johnson’s
Glass House of 1949, exemplify any
food for thought
less or
more
Ami Ran
One of the symptoms currently shaping the world of architecture that feeds mainly on
generic content - is the loss of personal identity. The most concrete example of this
phenomenon is the malignant use of Emoji that is rapidly replacing speaking, writing
and planning.
Admittedly, global languages have some merit, otherwise they wouldn’t have been
invented - musical notes that in the 11th century replaced biblical musical signs,
Esperanto, developed in 1887 by Eliezer Ludwig Zamenhof, a Jewish (Polish)
physician who thought of a way to connect hearts, Morse code invented prior to the
telegramand, more recently, the Emoji, extreme- short-cuts to express joy, sadness, or
disappointment by attaching an orange face that manages to communicate between
a Chinese and a Sudanese at the speed of light. The problem is that sadness, joy
or disappointment are always personal and overlooking this might eliminate the
differences between race, gender, culture or place.
architectural thinking worthy of imitation:
Their climatic functioning is faulty, as their
curtains don’t prevent the summer heat
from penetrating the building, and when
they are open in the winter, do not allow
residents’ privacy.
However, the modernist concept doesn’t
refer to any particular formal style, but
rather to an abstract design code, open
to endless concrete interpretations. And,
since the function of a building is not
determined in advance, neither is the
form.
Thus, the planning code correlating
content and form has given architects
open creative freedom, as long as they
can (ostensibly) assign every detail in the
building a functional justification, whether
symbolic, representational or ornamental.
Evidence of this is Le Corbusier’s “open
hand”, which appears in many of his
buildings as an obvious ornamental
element representing the architect rather
than any function of the building.
Moreover, Le Corbusier’s buildings have
never been perceived as representative
of the phrase ‘less is more’, especially
due to the fact that the “less” principle
underlying his buildings is by no means
simple, and certainly not less (see
AI#113). Ironically, his most quoted
contributions to the modernist campaign
are his anti-social declarations, “a house
is a machine for living in, as mentioned
in his book, published in 1923, “Towards
New Architecture”.
By the way, this is true about all the
modernist branches - the De Stijl or
Neoplasticism in Holland, the “Natural”
theme developed byAlvar Aalto in Finland,
and the organic architecture developed by
Frank Lloyd Wright in the USA. Each of
them had a completely different outlook
on architecture, and not at all minimalist.
Cardinal to them all is a conciseness that
uses “word” economically, while enabling
varying interpretations, very much like
poetry where one says less, but means
much more.
And about style: The history of art is
consistently based on two alternating
trends appearing in varying shades – one
is realistic and less decorative, the second
- romantic and overly ornamented.
In this context, the rotating transition
from the ornamental classical approach
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