Architecture is the will of an epoch translated into space and place. This is my reformulation of Mies van der Rohe’s famous definition of Architecture: “Architecture is the will of an epoch translated into space”. [1] Space, alone, is no more sufficient to describe the systemic complexity of architecture, which, at the beginning of a new era, is better understood…
I arrived at the conclusion that whatever space and time mean, place and occasion mean more, for space in the image of man is place, and time in the image of man is occasion. Split apart by the schizophrenic mechanism of determinist thinking, time and space remain frozen abstractions… A house should therefore be a bunch of places – a…
Images 01-02: Early study painting for the Vitra Fire Station, © Zaha Hadid Foundation (left). Encounter on the roof at the Vitra Fire Station, designed by Zaha Hadid Architects (1990-1993), Weil am Rhein, DE, 17 April 1995 (right). Slideshow: Event-place — Encounter with and Celebration at the Messner Mountain Museum, designed by Zaha Hadid Architects (2012-2015), Plan de Corones, IT,…
Architecture creates spaces and modifies places for dwelling. That is my definition of architecture: a discipline primarily concerned with space, place, and ‘dwelling’, which is its ultimate scope. A discipline in-between the ideal (i.e., the mental) and the physical (i.e., the corporeal), the abstract and the concrete, the potential and the actual. Spaces, which are ideal and abstract entities, can…
In this article, I will analyse the traditional spatial vocabulary of a pioneer of modern architecture, Richard Neutra, as we find it in Chapter 22 — ‘Physiological Space’ – Has Direction and Ranges — of his famous 1954 book ‘Survival Through Design’.[1] My purpose is to see continuities and differences with respect to the reformed understanding of spatial concepts that…