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Lego Production
Ana Gonzรกlez Granja
CONSTRUCTION TOYS are no longer just for child´s play, according to Fermín González Blanco, the design of construction toys, like Lego or Mecano, is a process that goes architecture and gets pedagogy, sociology and marketing. What he says is reflected today in toy industries as Lego which wants to explore the greatest iconic buildings in the world through their Lego brick, as an innovative project to inculcate the culture of architecture in minds of all ages, a simple and effective way of learning. Just paying a small amount of money you are able to build mini-master-pieces to spread as monuments all over your flat, but why they have chosen buildings such as The Empire State Building, Fallingwater, or Farnsworth House? Most of them are designed by famous architects, others have been designed to be icons in cities, icons of power, icons of politics and economy (transformed today in products of media, using them to sell an image and make a statment). But, what is the meaning contained in those small black boxes of Lego Architecture? What’s the meaning of having a 6,6 cm Farnsworth House materialized on your shelf? The cyclical process of construction and destruction that is allowed by construction toys is destroyed in the new line of products Lego architecture has commercialized. The disadvantage is that children’s creativity is reduced, as it is not as developed as it was when having a box with thousands of pieces that gives them the chance to imagine and build different forms. The advantage is that here they get the experience of one final answer, one shape that has a real history behind it, a cultural background. The first time a kid opens this convectional box of LEGO, hundreds of pieces appear in front of him, simple and small rectangles, colourful, made out of plastic and light materials easy to handle and move, but this new box also gives children instructions to help them in a straightforward construction. In the moment these 546 pieces are all perfectly placed one on top of another, in that moment, the new object materialized is the culmination of the International Style. That object is a replica of the last house by Mies van der Rohe, the Farnsworth House (1951), it is no longer a group of simple toys, it now is something consistent that describes a specific and critical moment in the history of architecture, focused on the Modern Movement and un Mies van der Rohe’s life. 59.99€ To buy the Myth of Modern Movement | Chapter 1
“Architecture starts when you carefully put bricks together” Ludwing Mies van der Rohe.
“What is myth, today?[…] myth is a type of speech” Roland Barthes, “Mythologies: Myth today”
As Roland Barthes establishes, any image or context can be deciphered in a way to reveal the myth that it contains. The speech that contains this example here is a particular house and its background. It is an iconic building of the 20th century that has been transformed into an object of media. As the Eiffel Tower is a symbol in Paris, today the Farnsworth house is a symbol for all architects, is symbol of Modernity. This building is perhaps the most iconic of Mies´s career, it is friendly., simple, it is a white and crystal rectangle, a primary shape, symbol of well done architecture, is taking the maxim “less is more”. It is like a Lego piece, one simple rigid rectangle, but why? Simple as the shape itself, Mies gave this answer “For most things we do need space. […] a rectangle space is a good space, maybe much better than a fluid space.”(Conversations with Mies van der Rohe, 2006:39). Ana González Granja
But what we see today as one of the major symbols of the International Style, that purity and dreamed house was harshly criticized in America during the 50’s. It was believed that the house was an insult to American country houses, and articles were published in American architectural magazines which began toaccuse Mies of threatening the traditional American style, and why the Modern Movement was being so spread in housing. House Beautiful defined the Farnsworth house as the example of “bad modern architecture”, and while Mies was almost compared with a dictator the International Style was understood as kind of a dictatorship, defined with common features and shared by different architects. Orthogonal pure shapes, smooth surfaces, no ornament, materials as concrete and steel structures, characteristics that they thought they were used to “guide” people on how they should live their home space, but Modern architecture has never been as much liked as its creators pretended it was.
How the Americans could understand the Farnsworth House as an attack, as an alien?
I (I love Modern Movement)
I
(I love Paris)
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“I believe that the Farnsworth house has never been completely understood” Mies van der Rohe.
The problem came with the expansion of the Modern Movement, instead of looking at it as an evolution, as the new shelter of a created utopian society, Americans saw it as the destruction and violation of the rules of traditional houses. But, music is not mere soothing background noise, painting is not mere wall decoration, and architecture is not mere shelter. The result of the Farnsworth House was not just a pure work of art set in the middle of a landscape. There is a tension coming from the balance between the practical points, aesthetic concerns, political and social issues that Mies had to handle. It took six years of design and construction and $74.000, but today you can spend just one afternoon and have an accurate replica of the myth of the Farnsworth House for just 59.90€. Ana González Granja
In 1951 the total amount of money Dr. Edith had to pay raised to US 74,000, from an initial budget of US 58,400. The LEGO imitation of the Farnsworth House for most of the people is just something to let the others see, a new sculpture-figure for the shelf, something to have fun with while you construct once and then to be proud of shown. But what this replica is hiding is the controversial and difficult process of elaboration, the design thinking process, the construction evolution the change of budget and techniques. What the house today communicates is the critical perception that society and Mies had of the original client, Edith Farnsworth. Those LEGO constructions are an absurd toy (if they can be defined as toy), in one way, they don’t let the use of people’s creativity, as there is just one final result there is not flexibility in the process of construction and destruction, and in the other hand after spending a couple of hours building it you see the house, true, but is it really explaining and letting people know about the story of how the house was conceived? About what happened between the client and the architect? About why is the house a glass box instead of a simple concrete box?
Edith Farnsworth
Mies van der Rohe
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It is worthwhile to stop and think why there is no reference of the name of such an architect as Mies, on the box that contains the myth of the Modern Movement, the LEGO Architecture box. Mies somehow always wanted to get rid of his name that reminded him of his family craftsman’s roots, in 1922 he was able to finally change it to Mies van der Rohe. But the negative connotation from the German word Mies, meaning something rotten or spoiled, was not going to make things easier, so for that reason he decided to put on airs of aristocracy introducing the false graft “van der”. Despite his attempts after finishing the Farnsworth house in 1951, some small errors in the construction opened the mockery and the word game between critics and his name. “La casa mies-conception (error, idea falsa; a popular misconception, error común o generalizado)” (Beatriz Preciado, Mies-conception: La casa Farnsworth y el misterio del armario transparente), it was the first appellant mock between Mies and mis-. Why is the name of the LEGO model designer (Adam Reed Tucker) in the box and not Mies’s one? Is this a contemporary mockery of Mies? Now they removed his name completely from the iconic house, hiding his name to the spectator of the model, as in the replica you just can read “Farnsworth House”.
Farnswo
Model de Adam Re
Ana González Granja
rth House
esigned by eed Tucker
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Edith the Farnsworth
Ana Gonzรกlez Granja
Mies and Edith Farnsworth had a lot of problems regarding the budget, he denounced her claiming for the total sum of money, and she sued him and accused him of fraud. But parallel to money conflicts, others arose when Edith became lovesick and spiteful after their love affair. They had a hidden-public relationship, the same relationship Mies created in the house, the same atmosphere of a hidden-public relationship of her with society. Because during the 50’s was very much described by American critics with malice. Although she was very independent and successful in her professional life, she was a self-conscious woman because of her height and ugliness, and her commitment to feminist groups. This was reason enough for her to be "accused" in some writings of homosexuality, because she liked the company of other women. Here is where LEGO is hiding the truth of the house, a hidden relationship that was public at that moment, the direct translation of a woman becoming the skin and bones of her house, her temple. A reflection that Mies made about Edith materialized in a glass box, and today in a LEGO piece. But the today object of media, the 6.6 cm Farnsworth house the story and judgments about Edith. Beatriz Preciado explains in her writing Mies-conception: La casa Farnsworth y el misterio del armario transparente, that the house was perceived as a way of coming out of the closet, as it was a transparent and glass rectangle, every movement she made would came to light and undressed her in the malicious and critic as society of the 50’s. The problem is that LEGO just displays an object, but it doesn’t make proof of the mystery the first client had, the one that defined the concept of the house. Set in the middle of this landscape in Plano (Illinois, Chicago) surrounded by nature and aligned with the Fox River, the meaning of this monument is a reciprocal conversation between house and landscape. Barthes explains that the Eiffel Tower is playing two functions seeing and being seen, Citizens see the tower from every point of the city and it is only from the Tower that you stop seeing it. This conversation is public and universal in the city of Paris. In our example Edith Farnsworth (the first owner) is the reincarnation of the house, the object house is her reflection, is the 59.99€ To buy the Myth of Modern Movement | Chapter 1
perception Mies had of her, Edith as a human body is translated into a livable space, into an architectural construction that has a soul itself, the house is structured as a human body. Mies is trying to reach to the point of being in harmony between nature, living space and the human. A naked landscape is seeing and is seen by a naked Edith, there is a reciprocal total appreciation of the pure beauties. Since the house is made out of huge pieces of glass, light and landscape come through it into the interior area, violating in a way the inside space, and breaking with the idea and association of inside meaning private. The limit between private and public is an optical effect, it is a game of hidden and shown elements, through an association of operations, there is a reading of the transparency as a phenomena of living, a way of eliminating the boundaries between closed and opened, between freedom and prison.
The house is an explanation of coming out of the convectional understanding of housing, breaking apart that idea of privacy by an inevitable dialogue inside-outside, there are no limits between them, it is a fluid conversation. The same idea is seen in Philip Johnson’s house (in New Canaan, Connecticut). The house was designed as a viewing platform, and again there is a conversation with nature and landscape. Directly connected with the ground but hidden from the bystander´s gaze. Even if both houses were placed in the middle of a natural landscape the colors used were totally opposite, while Johnson used a dark hue, and the exterior appearance was black. Mies, on the contrary, decided to paint everything in white because of the surrounding area was green and open, so no color was deserved for the house. “I myself” Mies recalled, “have been in this house from morning to nightfall. Until then, I had never realized how colourful nature could be. Inside, neutral colours have to be carefully used since all colours exist outside. These colours change continuously and completely, and I’d like to say that it is simply glorious”. Ana González Granja
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Farnsworth House, Mies van der Rohe
Ana Gonzรกlez Granja
Glass House, Philip Johnson
The Modern Movement served the needs for our senses, for our conception of evolution. It was architecture that was not seen as good one, where the Farnsworth House was considered as an aberration for American traditional houses, the point is that the International Style has no boundaries in terms of cultures (seeing the example of the glass box of Philip Johnson compared to the Farnsworth, following the same principles), and it is architecture that has succeeded and survived to critics because the architecture’s basics are well handled. In 1949 Johnson built his shelter, taking Mies’s concept of the Glass House, following the maxim “less is more” of their shared minimalism, Johnson made this house as a tribute to his mentor, Mies. It is also seen as one of the landmarks houses of the International Style, a symbol that was as much criticized as the Farnsworth house at that moment. David Whitney (an American art curator, collector, gallerist and critic) said once, “I became close to these people who are now all gods. But they weren’t then”. Architects and architecture at that moment because of society, belonged more to the field of questioning, they were assumed to give answer to society’s reactions, than to solve and give answer to architecture itself, they weren’t gods at that time because they were innovative, bold and clever on their movements, challenging what people considered good architecture (the traditional one), but they were walking next by the slow process of evolution, being part of it.
The myth that both houses contain is extrapolated from the object as a media element, they are myths about architectural icons of a movement as key as the Modern Movement. Over the years the glass houses are no longer functional, they are not using anymore the space for housing, they are now monuments of universal education. As Mies said, “a building should live as long as it can live. There is no reason to make it provisional.”(Conversations with Mies van der Rohe, 2006:35), today the houses serve both as museum, and the Farnsworth as a LEGO object of study. 59.99€ To buy the Myth of Modern Movement | Chapter 1
Skin-and-Bones
Ana Gonzรกlez Granja
Mies van der Rohe defined his architecture as is skin-and-bones architecture, and Theo Van Doesburg called him anatomical architect. He totally belongs to the Modern Movement, when he started the designing of the Farnsworth House it was totally opposite of what was being built in America, because American architects were following the principles of vernacular and traditional architecture, and continuing to work on the ideas of Frank Lloyd Wright, living a popular American culture. For this reason Mies and his International Style were not welcome at all. This house is a perfection and pure magnificence, with a perfect precision in detailing. Image of Modernism because of its flat roof, composed by surrounding horizontal windows giving the feeling of being just one, light and transparent materials instead of the heaviness and opacity of the traditionalist architects. A house that is floating in nature, not directly anchored to the ground, hold by light pillars that seem to be camouflaged as trunk’s trees. Purity is in terms of lacking ornamentation, that whiteness and thinness, something that F.L.Wright always used to hate. Modernist because the furniture is what gives the definition of a room, there are no walls, is a free plan that allows different configurations of one space, where furniture is minimalist and rare. The house is a singular monument, “what sees being mythically linked to what remains hidden” (Barthes´s Eiffel Tower essay) that what is supposed to happen in the LEGO Farnsworth element, revealing the hidden meaning, the proper signifier and signified of what is behind the model.
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“Clearing every form to the point where it has dismissed and left only what is modern” Rudolf Schwarz
The Role of the Critic “An architecture that is constantly aware of its own history, but constantly critical of the seductions of history, is what we should aim for today” Alan Colquhoun Three Kinds of Historicism:209
Ana González Granja
To explain a myth we do look past, we have to analyze and object we already know with the new meaning and values that has been given to it. To be able to understand what the myth behind the Lego Farnsworth House is we should have a previous knowledge about Mies and the house. To describe and decipher new values in this object, we have to look back in a deep search of historical references that might give you the clue of what you are seeing. As thousands of critics exist, thousands ways of understanding history derives from this. As Mies once obseved, “Architecture must not be subjective. It must be objective- that’s what it is”. The role of the critic is subjective and relative as it is just one person’s opinion, but it is an informed opinion, is shaping another way of understanding architecture with the same complexity of having lots of attitudes you can follow and be positioned towards history.
There is not an Absolute Truth. We write to questioning about history and thus acquire more knowledge about something we already know, we use our knowledge to criticize and continue the evolution of history. The human being is free of thought and live experiences, but every human is highly conditioned by a society that determines his behaviour, a culture, politics, religion… factors that are reflected in his idea of truth and history. The Farnsworth House has been determined over the history of architecture, told from different perspectives, and now as a construction toy that develops the idea of the myth of the modern movement, one of the most famous icons of Modern architecture is becoming object of media.
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