Maison de Verre – Pierre Chareau, Bernard Bijvoet, Louis Dalbet 1932 Armand Agraviador Reg. 090163526
Armand Agraviador 090163526
“We live for the most part within enclosed spaces. These form the environment from which our culture grows. Our culture is in a sense a product of our architecture. If we wish to raise our culture to a higher level, we are forced for better or for worse to transform our architecture. And this will be possible only if we remove the enclosed quality from the spaces within which we live. This can be done only through the introduction of glass architecture that lets the sunlight and the light of the moon and stars into our rooms not merely through a few windows, but simultaneously through the greatest possible number of walls that are made entirely of glass coloured glass. The new environment that we shall there by create must bring with it a new culture.” - Paul Scheerbart
The years immediately following the end of the First World War in 1918 left Europe in a state of transition. For many countries - namely Italy, the Weimar Republic and the much of Eastern Europe; this came in the form of a leadership crisis leading to social and economic instability. There was a rise in radical political movements as Communism spread through Russia leading to an antithetical rise in far right governments in neighbouring and Balkan states. However for The United Kingdom, The USA and France, the 1920s was a prosperous decade. The French referred to it as “Les Années Folles” – the mad years. The 1920s became the era for Jazz, Surrealism, Art Deco, ground-breaking Fashion and the Media. However French society did not follow the growing global trend of women‟s suffrage in politics, despite traditional roles being largely overturned in French couturier Coco Chanel‟s revolutionary fashion. France did however continue to produce groundbreaking works of art in many forms, most of which coming from Paris. Paris, which had architecturally been loyal to the Beaux-Arts and the Hausmannian doctrine for much of the late 19th century, was by now a city dotted with the newly fashionable Art Nouveau and just opening its mind to modernism. Technological advances in construction methods made it possible for architects to revise the way they considered internal layout. Auguste Perret set an example for the rest of Paris with his Rue Franklin apartments, managing to create a radical modern building remaining sympathetic to the Parisian aesthetic.
Pierre Chareau was an architect and furniture designer from Le Havre who attended the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-arts in Paris. Together with Bernard Bijvoet, a Dutch architect who had been working in Paris for a year, and locksmith Louis Dalbet, he was commissioned to design a home for the wealthy Dalsace family. This home also had to accommodate Mr. Dalsace‟s Gynaecology practice. The site given to the three designers is situated on 31 rue Saint Guillaume, by the border between 7ème and 6ème arrondissements of Paris – chosen by the Dalsace family who were attracted to the nearby intellectual and social faubourg of Saint Germain. The quartier was one made up of Haussmannian terraces which were shop fronts on street level with apartments above accessed from internal courtyards. The site of the Maison Dalsace was to be within one such courtyard, in a city block fortunate enough to have gardens in its centre. The Dalsace family bought the dilapidated existing building with the intent of demolishing it however the elderly woman living on the top floor apartment refused to vacate, so the entire building had to be built underneath without disturbing the existing third floor structure.
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Fig 1: The location of the Maison Dalsace highlighted in red, note the courtyard and garden on opposite sides of the site.
It was decided that the house would be a steel frame structure, firstly as it was the most practical way of supporting the existing top floor apartment during construction, also because it allowed for flexibility in organising internal spaces through free partitions and most importantly, it was the only way Chareau could let in ample natural light by means of the large translucent façades that he envisioned. By this time metal frame structures were well used by modernists, van de Rohe and Le Corbusier had demonstrated their aesthetic and spatial advantages world-wide, in fact the Villa Savoye was being constructed at the same time as La Maison de Verre. However Chareau‟s approach to the design and construction of the Dalsace house was much more sympathetic to the needs of Parisians and accommodating to the customs of French high society. Chareau was not trying to impose a new modernist lifestyle on the residents in the way of Le Corbusier and Van de Rohe. Rather, it was as if he was taking what Auguste Perret had done with 25b Rue Franklin a step further, keeping traditional public, private, female and male spaces in consideration but adapting them in such a way technology allowed. Chareau was steering clear of the abrupt minimalism that modernism was often associated with, and this was seen in the attention to detail and bespoke fittings which could be largely attributed to Dalbet‟s careful work as a metalworker and craftsman. Construction began in 1927, the inside of the existing building was demolished and the metal frame was built to underpin the internal structure above, once this was done the façades were also demolished and the frame was completed to support the entire weight of the conserved floor. The riveted girders and stanchions, being dry construction were assembled very quickly facilitating the process of building straight after demolition.
The house was to have three floors; the ground floor was focused on professional activity, Dr. Dalsace‟s clinic, while the second and third floor contained the Dalsace residence. This was built in the height within which only two floors raised off of the ground once stood, presumably the previous dwelling had higher ceilings on individual floors. An ancillary wing that stretches out into the courtyard houses the kitchen, cleaning services and living facilities for the house servants.
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The house has a very deep footprint flanked by two party walls. One must also remember that the existing top floor of the previous dwelling meant that the house had little exposed roof and so in effect the house had only two façades through which light could penetrate, and the north-west one faced a dark courtyard. To allow maximum natural light into the house Chareau designed curtain walls made up of panels of frosted glass. It took much experimentation before he decided on a square glass lens of 20 cm × 20cm × 4cm known as Nevada-type lenses which could sit almost seamlessly into a steel framework. This was a lightweight evolution from the glass blocks that became popular around 1900 with the arrival of reinforced concrete, blocks that were used extensively by Auguste Perret. It is worth noting that at this time glass lenses were seldom used as a building‟s protective skin, Kenneth Frampton attributes this to “Technical Insecurity”.1
Fig 2, 3: Semi-opaque glass lenses
Chareau grouped these glass lenses into 6 × 4 grids that sat in the larger grid of the metal frame that he, in the 1930s, clad in cement identical to that used to join the lenses. The effect was sense of an endlessly delicate translucent wall, however in the 60s the concrete cladding of the front façade was covered with steel for protection against weathering - expressing the industrial inner structure. Special openings had to be installed for ventilation but kept small for security. These windows and their unique mechanisms were for the most part designed by Louis Dalbet. The entire arrangement has a similar feel to Philippine capiz screens or even Japanese shoji screens - Frampton suggests that Chareau‟s friendship with Adolf Loos, who was acquainted with East Asian architecture was the source of this aesthetic.¹
Residents, guests and patients all had to enter through the same entrance on the ground floor. The circulation through the ground floor clinic was designed so that patients progress through a logical sequence of rooms. Half of the waiting room space wrapping around the receptionist‟s office is doubleheight allowing plenty of light in through the curtain wall, this space leads to the double-height consulting room. Patients can then progress into the examination room through a large sliding door and continue into the attendance room before leaving back through the central corridor. This circuit of interconnecting spaces means that the public area of the ground floor loops around the receptionist‟s office. Patients do not have to go back through the waiting room to leave, this allows there to be a sense of flow through the ground floor and also maintains a sense of anonymity for the women being examined. 1
Frampton, K., " La Maison de Verre ", Arquitectura no. 275-276, Madrid, 1988
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Fig. 4: Ground floor plan - note the entrance that requires visitors to “slide” into the house from the side. While the residence is accessed from the central staircase, the entrance to the circuit of rooms that make up the clinic is beyond this to the rear of the building. Servants enter the ancillary wing by continuing straight from the main entrance.
The rest of the house is accessible through the main staircase connecting the central corridor to the salon. It is angled in such a way that the first thing you see after ascension is the large glass wall, emphasising the contrast of dark to light. The screen and screened threshold surrounding it gives the impression that the staircase is observable but exclusive. The double height salon makes up a perceivable half of the volume of the 2nd and 3rd floor. Large enough to accommodate a small orchestra, it provides natural light for much of the house through its entire curtain wall that makes up the front (courtyard) façade of the building. Chareau‟s design of the 2nd floor is sensitive to French intellectual society. He has divided it into a social space for functions and entertaining, Mr. Dalsace‟s study and Mme. Dalsace‟s day room. The latter two spaces acted as masculine and feminine spaces, a feature that remained from the foumoir and boudoir of the French bourgeois house. These gender orientated spaces were still significant parts of French architecture, In Auguste Perret‟s Rue Franklin apartments they very much created a polarity in the symmetry of the plan, Chareau‟s design was a much looser interpretation in terms of layout and without this confinement to symmetry in the Maison de Verre, he was able focus on functionality and logical adjacency. The 3rd floor is dedicated to bedrooms and bathrooms where privacy is maintained using walls of thick custom-built storage units.
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So far we have been discussing the practical reasons behind the design of the Maison Dalsace, however the building is not only innovative in terms of construction but is regarded as an outstanding example of architectural imagery. My understanding of this puts Chareau‟s strategy into three categories: The voyeuristic, the sexual and the authoritative. The glass façades have been carefully designed to control the way people observe and perceive their surroundings. Clear glass on the ground floor around the entrance lobby allow people to view part of the inside and also view people entering the building, had this glass been frosted like the rest of the façade, the building would not be as inviting and may have a seedy appearance in the daylight. The transparent windows in the waiting room are at eye-level creating views of the garden while saving patients from feeling watched from outside. Upstairs, the considerations are far less professional and more socialdomestic. The frosted glass stops people from looking in while encouraging residents and guests inside to look within the building and perhaps engage one another rather than looking out onto the outside world. At night the building‟s secretive atmosphere changes as the artificial light projects silhouettes of activity onto the courtyard providing a glimpse of the socialite life. The garden side of the house has clear windows on the top two floors providing controlled views into the garden. A curious feature of the house in terms of surveillance is Mme. Dalsace‟s spying corner, a small balcony attached to her day room that overlooks the double-height procession between the waiting room and consultation room on the ground floor. This voyeuristic feature could seem sinister but is also almost comical when one considers that Mme. Dalsace is after all the wife of a gynaecologist and it is understandable that she might want to observe the women that her husband examines.
Fig. 5: Semi transparent façade at night showing a glimpse of interior.
Fig. 6: Bedroom gallery with clandestine views
There are purportedly visual references to Mr. Dalsace‟s profession, the house‟s moving fittings like those used for storage and privacy are meant to reflect the mechanical nature of a gynaecologist‟s instruments and apparatus. The most symbolic of these is the telescopic ladder from the master bedroom, penetrating into Mme. Dalsace‟s day room – a metaphorical female domain. The procession into the waiting room past the entrance staircase for the house gives this impression of an intrusion into private space. The metal posts in the salon have been painted what has been described as a “menstrual red”. Despite these observations being very suggestive of vaginal intrusion, I find that most of them seem like forced postrationalisations made by imaginative minds.
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Fig. 7: Mme. Dalsace‟s spying corner overlooking the waiting room gallery. Also note the transparent windows at eye level, allowing views into the garden while maintaining privacy.
Fig. 8: Steel post painted “menstrual red” as an allusion to female genitalia
Christopher Wilson writes in detail about the „serpentine‟ route taken by patients visiting the practice. He describes it as an illustration that Dr. Dalsace is very much in control over the patients.2 His study on the residential floor has staircase access to the centre of the downstairs circulation space, allowing him to have an air of omnipresence. The translucent glass panels also give the impression that only Dr.Dalsace can see the patient once the patient is in the building. This sense of constant surveillance is not so much intimidating, but more of a feeling of suppressive (not oppressive) authority – perhaps even a sense of protection. The sunken waiting room places the patients in a more sheltered environment and is appropriate architectural language for indicating a break in the circulation.
All in all, the Maison Dalsace is an impressive icon for in both technology and symbolism. The house is beautiful in proportion and material contrast and harmony, while the fittings and furniture marry together art and industrialism very well. It is almost as if the building is a celebration of France at the turn of the century, showing what could be achieved now that the technology of the early 1900s was now developed. The integration of the clinic is unique and innovative and the use of space is very logical and a great inspiration for anyone visiting. Personally I have my reservations about what extent of the imagery written about was of the designers‟ original intention; beyond Chareau‟s voyeuristic manipulation of movement and views – which I find fascinating, I feel that the air of authority and metaphors of gynaecology are by-products of the genius of the house‟s special design and the intricacy of the fittings and mechanisms. Some of the theories of the Dalsaces‟ authoritative presence falls flat when we consider details like the house maid‟s linen room, which overlooks the salon. Surely the maid is not meant to be given this much symbolic power but rather many of these design decisions are of practicality rather than imagery.
Wilson, C. Negotiating Domesticity: Spatial Productions of Gender in Modern Architecture (pp. 234-251), Routledge, New York, 2005 2
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Fig. 9: Telescopic stairs connecting master bedroom to Mme. Dalsaceâ€&#x;s day room. It could be seen as an intrusion into feminine space, perhaps symbolic of the gynaecological profession. Alternatively it could be seen to expand and contract according to female will – a comment on French gender values.
Fig. 10: Screened dressing room in each bedroom. Privacy and visibility is playfully manipulated while the mechanical theme is retained.
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